The Many Worlds Interpretation
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: The wizards of Unseen University created a pocket universe. They learnt how to interact with it and to visit one particular planet. Where there is the USA. California. Pasadena. Caltech. Where other academically and scientifically minded people - with personalities as quirky as those of UU's wizards - strive to solve the mystery of the Big Bang. And then they met.
1. A Hot Dark State

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_Ever since I started getting into "The Big Bang Theory", an idea has been gestating in my head. TBBT deals with a group of geeky friends, all of whom are unworldly to some extent, all of whom are on the Faculty of a major university, all of whom have interesting eccentricities and character quirks, one of whom is absolutely convinced of his intellectual superiority, and all are obsessed with the minutae of other worlds while not being fully cogniscant with the social intricacies of the one they actually live in. Hmm... wait a minute... this suggests a cross-over and Two Worlds Meeting._

Ponder Stibbons looked doubtfully at the contraption. It sat in the middle of the High Energy Building's floor, inert for the moment, looking purposeful and slightly sinister. It was obviously of Discworld design: full of the elaborate decoration and rococo intricacies of polished brass and ivory inlay that local design theory held was wholly necessary for the aesthetic appearance of any functioning machine. It looked like the result of a random explosion in a furniture makers which had on the way picked up accessories it quite fancied from a decorative metalworker's shop.

"What does it actually _do_, HEX?" he asked. The University's thinking engine occasionally did things like this. With access to the University's clacks account and financial authorisation codes, it had spontaneously sent detailed plans to the Street of Cunning Artificers, who had duly obliged and delivered a very large packing case – and a very large bill – to Unseen University that morning. Ponder was unsure how the Arch-Chancellor would react to seeing the bill, but as the University's de facto Bursar, he had developed certain self-preservation strategies. He had decided to bury the invoice somewhere in the Catering accounts under an anodyne ledger entry, as a very large sudden expense would not be out of place on the food and beverages bill. But first he needed to know what it was _for_. HEX would not have commissioned it without a reason.

++Professor Stibbons, we were discussing the theoretical implications of the Multiverse ++We speculated that it exists, and that Roundworld is only one manifestation of a greater whole++Indeed, witness the number of alternate paths which Roundworld has taken, and those necessary moments when we have had to intervene to restore its correct path++Those alternate timelines are not dead++They still exist in a limbo but we can recall them at will++All the indications are therefore that Roundworld may well be merely the jumping-off point for other, stranger, realities yet, but which we are unable to access++This vehicle is designed to bridge those gulfs and travel not just up and down Roundworld's timelines, but into alternate Roundworlds lying as close, but as hitherto unreachable, as the back of a shadow++

"All very metaphysical, HEX." said Ponder. "There are two seats, I notice. Ow!" He slapped the polished brass frame, and barked his shin on the rococo brass finials protruding from the front legs.

++I strongly suggest sending two research associates with appropriate skills++ said HEX. ++You will notice the control mechanism on the dashboard takes the form of an adjustable calendar++The large parabolic dish behind is designed to keep the whole unit inside a thaumically maintained bubble which will preserve optimum temperature and atmospheric pressure, in the event of materialising in an environment otherwise inimical to the maintainence of life++

Ponder, hopping on one foot, looked up into a large vertically mounted concave disc behind the crew seats. He nodded.

"Better find Professor Rincewind, then." he said.

++Actually, Professor Stibbons, your presence is mandated for this research trip++ said HEX.

Ponder looked round in surprise.

"Why me?" he asked.

++There are interesting intelligences out there in a place identified only as Caltech++ HEX said. ++It requires you to attend in person as you would be both an intellectual equal to them, and a person they would find sympathetic and congenial++ Professor Rincewind would, on this occasion, not cut it.++

Ponder sighed. At least he wouldn't be there if Ridcully chose to poke around and find the invoice for the machine. At that moment anywhere else in the unknown infinite Multiverse would be preferable.

"And who gets the second seat?" he asked.

HEX considered this.

++The intelligences I would like you to contact are easily swayed by an attractive woman's presence++ he said. ++A woman attractive in appearance, with intellectual abilities of her own, and who in extremis could act as bodyguard and security consultant, as the location of Caltech is not without risk to the unwary visitor++ HEX paused for a moment.

++I propose Doctor Smith-Rhodes++

* * *

Sheldon Cooper sat in an ungainly hunched-over huddle on the left-hand side of the sofa. Leonard Hofstadter privately thought he looked more like the result of the unholy genetic splicing of a lemur and a praying mantis than ever. Next to him, Penny looked completely at her ease, as she reached for another serving of dim sum. Leonard sighed, trying not to stare. Why was this woman so god-damned, tantalisingly, painfully, unreachably, _attractive_? Why she chose to hang with the guys remained a mystery to him. It couldn't just be free Chinese food, surely? Raj Koothrapali sat to her left, mute and uncomfortable. It added to his private misery that Bernadette Wolowitz was perched on the seat-arm to his right, her pinball smile** (1)** glowing like a machine that was offering you a free play. Everybody liked Bernadette. Especially Howard, who adored her. Howard, who dressed and hairstyled himself to look like Ringo Starr's long-lost twin brother. He occupied a folding lawn-chair over to Leonard's left. And then there was...

Ungainly, frumpy, unworldly, shapeless in layers of cardigans, thick wooly skirt, heavy-denier tights and sensible clumpy shoes. Leonard knew underneath it all was a hell of a nice girl. It was just that Amy was in so many ways the ideal consort to Sheldon. He, Leonard Hofstadter, ought to know. He'd helped engineer getting them together, something he still felt vaguely guilty about. What if they finally worked out the practical, as well as the theoretical side, of the sex thing, and actually _bred_? What had he and Howard unleashed on the world? What sort of a Frankenstein would their joint genes produce? **(2)** He shuddered.

"So what did you guys actually do with that time-machine thing that was cluttering up the apartment?" Penny asked. Raj leaned over and mimed something to Howard, who nodded sympathetically.

"It's under a tarpaulin on Raj's apartment balcony." Howard said. "We put it up for sale again on Ebay but nobody bit. Even after relisting it twice."

"That's just as well." Sheldon observed. "I had a really bad nightmare about it." His voice was nasal, slightly whiny, with petulant overtones. It was not a voice you could warm to.

"Oh, _sweetie_!" Penny said, sympathetically. "I could hear your nightmare from across the hall!"

"Everyone can hear Sheldon's nightmares. From the other side of Pasadena." Howard said.

"What about me? I'm in the next room!" Leonard added, with feeling.

"At least it's outta here." Penny remarked. She still hadn't quite forgiven them for blocking up the stairwell on a morning when she was late for work. She still went the other way round the block to avoid the Middle Eastern family from the next building. "I'm in no hurry to see the thing again."

The boys had once bought a stage prop from a 1960's sci-fi movie; a piece of steampunk Victorian imagining of what a hi-tech 1890's time-machine should look like, all rococo flounces and superfluous ornamentation. It had looked good, but had been life-size, rather than the miniature model they'd been expecting.

"Nightmares." said Amy Farrah-Fowler, picking up on an interesting point. "I believe they are caused by neurochemical imbalance as the focus of brain activity switches during sleep from the higher cortex to the hindbrain and hypothalamus. This is the deeper reptilian level of the brain and as such is the seat of mankind's primal fears and desires. Freud may well have been partially right in postulating the existence of the id, but he made a fallacious assumption that this is a psychological rather than a neurochemical and neurological phenomenon."

Penny looked bemusedly at her.

"Sweetie, you lost me at the 'I believe' part." she said.

"Interesting" said Sheldon. "So you could provide experimental evidence to support this hypothesis by, for instance..."

"Extracting samples of your brain tissue during sleep and subjecting it to extensive laboratory testing." Amy said, absolutely poker-faced. "Obviously, protocol demands the experiment be replicable and it will need to be repeated."

"Why not? He's got brain tissue to spare." Leonard said.

"I was about to say 'subjecting me to EEG and cat-scans while in a sleeping state during the onset of nightmare.'" Sheldon said, hurriedly.

Amy reflected.

"That may work too." she eventually conceded. Her manner suggested that dissection was by far the preferred alternative.

Penny helped herself to a portion of skewered satay chicken.

"Well, at least we won't be seeing the freaking thing round here again, any time soon." she said.

* * *

Johanna Smith-Rhodes read through the briefing notes from HEX. Her Guild of Assassins training had taught her to assimilate complex information quickly. Her vocation as a teacher and zoologist also helped.

"Ja." she said, thoughtfully. "It all seems straightforward. HEX, this will not take too much time out from my regular work here?"

++I can return you here in subjective Discworld time at shortly after the moment you leave, regardless of how much time elapses on the version of the Roundworld you will be visiting++ HEX assured her. ++Time is subjective++

Johanna grinned. She loved adventures, and a simple contract to the University to provide escort services to Professor Stibbons should be straightforward enough. Escorting Wizards who required professional bodyguards on hazardous expeditions where they were ill-equipped to face more mundane perils was a valid use of her Assassin skills. Besides, for Ponder, she'd do this for nothing.

"End the mechine is devised to send us outside our normal space end time, to explore alternetive versions of the Roundworld which stend outside the normal timeline of the elternetive world?" she said. "I think I comprehend thet."

++Everything you can imagine is real, in the Multiverse++ The phase of the Multiverse you are going to explore is real enough in its own space-time, but in other phases of the Roundworld it may only exist as imagination, as a fable, or a stage performance, or a romantic novel in the mind of a particularly imaginative person++Everything resonates++

Ponder took his place in the driver's seat and studied the controls. The control panel looked both deceptively simple and forbiddingly difficult. Ponder suspected it might operate in more dimensions than the usual three. Lights glowed in various colours, including the octarine, and some parts of the console were hard to make out, shifting slightly under his glaze.

++I have programmed the machine++Please clip the omniscope fragment to the console in the indicated place++ This will enable me to monitor and advise++

Omniscopes could, in theory, see anything, anywhere.**(3)** HEX used them for gathering information and "monitoring".

++Following certain regrettable and painful events involving Professor Rincewind, we learnt the advisability of having cover identities and appropriate personal identification for travelling on Roundworld++ I have researched and prepared cover identities and supporting documentation for both of you++

Two thick buff envelopes materialised.

++Your names will remain the same for convenience++ Good luck and happy travelling++

A bubble of octarine light formed around the machine and the two travellers. It shrank to a point and disappeared. HEX felt a sense of personal satisfaction and awaited the development of events.

* * *

"And there's more space in the apartment now it's gone." Penny added. "And you guys aren't likely to foul up the stairwell again, any time soon."

She reached for the spring rolls, looking happy and satisfied.

Then there was a sudden explosion of light in various colours. Bernadette screamed. Raj screamed, even more loudly and more high-pitched than Bernadette.

"_What the Hell..."_ Leonard exclaimed. He closed his eyes, but the after-images flickered still across his visual field. _This is freaky, _he thought._ Am I seeing more colours than the usual seven? What's in that kung-po sauce?_

He heard Sheldon say "Interesting" in a very mild voice. Afterwards, Leonard Hofstadter could only describe the eighth colour he had glimpsed as _a sort of greeny-bluey-turquoise... look, guys, by definition a colour nobody's ever seen before won't have a word to describe it... you've got to see it. It was like a shaped hole in space where a colour should be, you know?_

"Howard, tell me you haven't reactivated that freaking security system? " Penny shrieked. "Can I expect an electrified steel-mesh net to drop on me any time soon?"

And then the light show faded and a humming noise Dopplered down to nothing and cut out.

Penny opened her eyes. To see that freaking god-damn time machine sitting there as if it had never left. With two people sitting on it. Raj Kooptrathali grinned contentedly. The fact two oddly-dressed strangers had materialised out of thin air and that he was now covered in various Chinese food sauces was immaterial. For both Bernadette Wolowski and Penny had instinctively grabbed him for comfort and security, tightly wrapping themselves around him. For now, Raj savoured the moment, and silently put up a fervent prayer of thanks to Ganesh, the elephant-headed God of good fortune and prosperity.

A girl with striking red hair stepped out of the machine and scanned the room. Something about her carriage and poise implied competence, strength, and an ability to hold her own in a fight. Leonard also noted the very big machete on one hip and the coiled whip on the other. Howard Wolowitz noted that she looked like Indiana Jones' extremely cute younger sister.

"Wow." he breathed, involuntarily. "What world did _you_ just step out of?"

Afterwards, Leonard would reflect that of all the possible ways in which First Contact could be made with people from a different planet, it _had_ to be Howard, as good as hitting on the other civilization's female representative. Forget "Take me to your leader", it _had_ to be "Are all the women on your world as hot as you?"

The girl smiled at Howard. Her smile had overtones of a very hot sunny place and for some reason, a lioness who has opted to play with her food.

"Hot?"she said. "_Ja_, it is true thet I come from a hot country. I hev heard your..._Celifornia_... is a pleasantly warm place. But I em a little confused. We intended to errive here in the year twenty-thirteen. But your clothing suggests the year is nineteen sixty-seven?"

Bernadette snorted with laughter.

"That's what I keep telling him, but will he listen?" she said. She had an appealing little-girl high-pitched voice. Johanna smiled reassuringly at her, assessing her as being no threat. She nodded at Ponder.

"I too hev found it difficult to change a man's dress sense." she said. "Perheps some things are universal?"

_Seven people. Four men. All of whom appear to be no physical threat. I could floor them all with a single slap. Three women. This one is pleasant and likeable. The well-formed blonde girl, seated next to the woebegone-looking little man of Ghatian appearance, is physically strong and in very good shape. She could give me a little trouble if it came to a fight. Watch her. For the moment her mouth is hanging open and she appears shocked and astonished. As well she might. _

The seventh person looked at Johanna and Ponder with only a look of mild dispassionate surprise on her face.

_Assuming this is not a hallucination brought on by chemical poisoning induced by contaminated Asian food, _Amy Farrah-Fowler thought, _this could be a very interesting situation indeed. Are these people from the future of Earth, or could they be from a different planet altogether? And how will their brain chemistry differ from ours? What are the environmental variables? And her accent sounds just like that visiting research fellow from South Africa... a South African alien? Wasn't there a movie Sheldon took me to about aliens in South Africa?_

The tall, spindly, one stood up, a look of excitement on his face.

"You... you are... you have... a time machine? And you've made it _work_?"

Ponder Stibbons smiled, stepped forward, and extended a hand.

"I feel we should introduce ourselves." he said. "I'm sorry to have burst in uninvited and to have caused you concern. My name is Ponder Stibbons."

His voice sounded educated English, Leonard noted. _Two aliens, but one sounds South african and the other an Englishman?_

"_Professor_ Ponder Stibbons." Johanna prompted him. "If our information is correct, the people here are elso ecademics."

Sheldon Cooper sprang forward, quivering like an excited puppy being offered a new chew-toy. He grasped Ponder's hand and pumped it.

"Doctor Sheldon Lee Cooper. B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D.. Theoretical physicist. When Caltech finally realises what they've got and I'm given tenure, I should also become Professor Cooper. I look forward to that happy day."

Ponder nodded. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Cooper. My colleague here is Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes."

Johanna smiled warmly. Sheldon spared her a brief nod. "And your academic field, Doctor Smith-Rhodes?"

Unseen University had conferred a honorary doctorate on Johanna. It had been in recognition of her work with a certain sort of animal life and had been bestowed by the Department of Cryptozoology, Pseudozoology, Parazoology, and Bloody Odd And Dangerous Animals.

"I em a zoologist. I specialise in enimel menegement, enimel psychology, end related issues."

"Interesting." Sheldon Cooper said, in a dismissive voice that suggested it wasn't and that soft sciences such as zoology did not interest him in the slightest. Johanna felt her fists itch.

"What do you know about monkeys?" Amy Farrah-Fowler asked.

"Where would you like me to start?" replied Johanna. "End to clerify the terms of reference here, we ere telking ebout true monkeys, which ere simian creatures who do _not_ identify themselves es Great Apes?"

"Interesting choice of words." Amy observed. "I deal with monkeys in my research labs. If you're staying here for any length of time, you might wish to come and see them?"

"Errr..." Leonard Hofstadter said, uncertainly. Johanna turned to look at him. Something about him, his general look, his air of hangdog uncertainty, the slight build, the glasses, the nondescript dress sense... he reminded her strongly of Ponder Stibbons, as he'd been when they first met. She warmed to him.

"Doctor Leonard Hofstadter". Sheldon said, casually. "Although he's only an _experimental_ physicist."

"Pleased to meet you, Leonard". she said, stepping over to take his hand.

"I was about to say..." Leonard looked down at her waist. "If you're going to go out in public in Pasadena or visit Caltech. Your... weapons..."

"Ah, _ja_!" she said, realising. The briefing notes had mentioned the local Watch and explained that Californian police did not look too kindly on open displays of armaments. And that they were all _gonne_-armed. She unbuckled and removed her sword belt. She went armed every day in Ankh-Morpork. It was needed there.

"I epologise if the weapons I cerry caused concern." she said, comfortable in the knowledge that only one of these people would be capable of causing her any sort of difficulty in a fight. "It was not my intention." She rested her weapons belt against a wall. Howard, the one stuck in a 1960's time-warp, interestedly moved to look closely. She took his arm restrainingly. To him, the grip felt like a steel vice and he froze up. This, he realised, was not a grip to shake off or be taken lightly.

"May I make it clear, Doctor Wolowitz?" she said, kindly. But very firmly.

"That's _Mister_ Wolowitz!" Sheldon Cooper corrected her, without turning round. He was excitedly looking over the travelling machine with Ponder and firing questions.

Johanna noted a couple of obviously replica weapons hanging on the wall and the thought occurred to her that these people were perhaps overinterested in weapons that they would not know how to use and lacked the stamina and muscle-power to wield for very long. Similar weapon-nerds existed on the Disc.

"I would prefer it that nobody touches my sword-belt while it stays here." she said.

Howard grinned, almost comprehending. Being Howard Wolowitz, he then said:

"Ah, something like Aragorn in the halls of Meduseld? A weapon handed down by your ancestors that nobody else may touch for fear of terrible death?"

Johanna's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"I know nothing of Aragorn, or this Meduseld". she said. "What I _do_ mean is that there are pockets and pouches on thet belt which contain certain... preparations and essences. These cen be dangerous to people who do not know how to use them. If my mechete interests you, which by the way belonged to my great-grend _ouma,_ end was hended down the femily to me, I have no objection to your hendling thet. But not now. Later, perheps?"

"Is an _ouma_ like a _mee-maw_?" Sheldon Cooper asked.

"Do you mean a grendmother? _Ja,_ same thing." She found herself admiring Sheldon's mind, whilst being aware of a sudden irrational desire to hit him. Hard.

"Your _grandmother's_ sword?" the girl called Bernadette said, incredulously.

Whilst Sheldon informed everybody that _ouma_ was the Dutch word for "grandmother" and was also used in the related Afrikaans language spoken in Southern Africa, and now he came to consider the matter, he wondered if _''mee-maw"_ was a corruption of that word and not just the Cooper family's private term of affection, the attractive blonde girl who did not wear glasses cane out of her shocked trance.

"Yeah, sure, sweetie. Back home in Nebraska I've got antique guns my grandmother gave to me. I can buy that."

_She has weapon skills, J_ohanna thought. _Interesting. _

"My_ great-_grandmother." Johanna corrected her. "It is a honoured weapon in my femily. My great grend-ouma killed four Zulus with it at the bettle of Isandlhwana end wounded et least es many others."

She kept a poker face as the replica sword collecters looked at each other. Being in the presence of a weapon that had actually _killed_ people was something utterly outside their experience.

"But my grandmomma sure never shot anyone dead." Penny murmured. "She did wing a cattle-rustler, though. And shot my uncle in the butt, but hey, that was an accident."

Johanna smiled.

"We have things in common, then. Miss...?"

"Just call me Penny. Pleased to meet you!"

Penny moved across on the sofa and beckoned Johanna to sit down. She did so, feeling the dark-skinned man on her right squirming in what felt like embarrassment. It was hard to tell if he was blushing under his dark skin, but she suspected that he would be going visibly red if his skin were paler.

"Hello. I'm Johanna. We have not been introduced?" she said with a friendly smile, extending a hand.

The Ghatian-looking man wriggled in discomfort and said nothing. Johanna turned to Penny.

"I mean no offence. But your friend here. Has he the misfortune of being mute?"

Penny and Bernadette both spluttered with laughter.

"Hell, no! It's just that Raj has this thing where he can't talk to attractive women. Can't you, sweetie?" She leaned across Johanna and chucked him under the chin affectionately. Johanna noted in passing that these Celifornians appeared to have a better grasp of personal hygiene than most Ankh-Morporkians; she smelt a pleasant perfume and a warm, well-tended, body. This was good.

Raj mumbled something and stood up, moving to the kitchen area.

"I worried thet it might be because here, I am a white Rim..." Johanna caught herself, "_Sed-Efrrrikan. _There are bleck end coloured people who hev an issue with thet."

She watched Raj uncork a bottle, pour a glass, and drain the contents in one. He looked back over to the four women on and around the sofa, paused, and poured and drained another one. He looked visibly calmer and more assured.

"Raj has an interesting case of selective mutism." said the dowdy Amy. "Hell, I really want to dissect _his_ brain sometime!"

Johanna said nothing, but gained a growing sense that this group of people would fit _right_ in on the Discworld. She also wondered if this strange Amy Farrah-Fowler was part-Igorina. Or at least part Anirogi. **(4) **Igorinas generally took care to be better-looking than that, she thought, unkindly. Must be Anirogi, then.

Raj returned with a greater mood of purpose and self-confidence and resumed his place next to Johanna. She could distinctly smell some sort of alcohol, possibly a sweet wine.

"Dear lady." he said, surprising her. "I am sorry if my earlier behaviour may have struck you as impolite. I required something to help me relax. Doctor Smith-Rhodes, I am Doctor Raj Kooprathali. Astro-physicist. I gather you are from a different world?"

"_Ja._" she said. "Estro-physics is not unknown on my world. Ponder's University teaches it es a discipline. Elthough it has other names there."

She noted he had the sing-song inflection of the Ghatians. She frowned. There was a Ghat-like country on Roundworld, she recalled. Although its human population, to her, had been incidental. It had lions and tigers and elephants. These and other fauna had been enough for her.

"Speak to me of your world." Raj urged her. "To meet somebody from a different planet..."

"Where do I begin?" she said. "And is thet _Agatean food _I can smell?"

Penny indicated the table.

"Help yourself, sweetie." she said. "The guys can always send out for more."

Meanwhile, Sheldon Cooper was skipping up and down with excitement around the travelling machine.

"Can we go somewhere?" he urged Ponder. "Can we? Can we? Can we?"

"Calm down, Sheldon!" Leonard said, impatiently. "That's up to Professor Stibbons!" Leonard was achingly keen for a go himself. But he knew this incredible opportunity was in the gift of the visitors. He had to admit, they were not hostile. And one of them seemed to have a taste for Chinese food. He wondered if he should ring the Szechuan Palace and order more. It would be worth it.

"All these questions, Leonard! How does it work? What powers the device? Do you have a cloaked mothership in geostationary orbit around this planet right now, invisible to all our puny attempts at detection? Are there others who are even now visiting other cities and searching out the best academic minds? Can we see inside the mothership? So much to learn!"

Ponder smiled, seeking to restrain Sheldon Cooper's excited enthusiasm, trying to talk mainly to Leonard Hofstadter, who he sensed was the person with a mind most like his. And possibly the most grounded person in the room to deal with, both as intellectual peer and as group representative.

"And Penny, you're _in my spot_!"

Penny sighed.

"So I am, sweetie. But there's nowhere else to sit, we have guests, and you're all excited about getting your time machine back. One that _works_!"

Sheldon, it's getting late. We need to talk about finding our new friends a place to stay tonight." Amy thoughtfully extracted a nearly-new handkerchief from her sleeve and examined it with a frown. Johanna suddenly had a flash of recognition. The ungainly walk. The shapeless sensible clothes. If she piled that lank hair, would it shape up into _schnecken_ over both ears...

"Doctor Farrah-Fowler?" she said. "Tell me, have you ever worked for the Post Office? You remind me of somebody I know at home."

"I had a summer job with the Postal Service while I was paying my way through sophomore school, yes." Amy said. "The whole dynamic of sorting and delivering mail struck me as a classic example of the stochastic process in action. Bringing order out of seeming chaos. I suggested many ways in which it could be improved. Unfortunately my line manager had a mental breakdown, and was not in a position to implement any of my suggestions."

Amy smiled.

"It was a _happy_ time."

Johanna decided not to ask her if she was related to anyone called Maccalariat.

"Sweetie, are those the only clothes you've got?" Penny asked. Johanna was dressed in her usual serviceable veldt clothing, khaki tunic and trousers, with comfortable well-broken boots. She nodded. Penny looked back with an expression of deep sympathy.

"You look like you're dressed for a safari, hon. Have you got dollars? If not, Leonard's got a credit card."

Johanna she had checked its contents, the thick brown envelope had contained, amongst other things, five thousand U.S. dollars in notes, which HEX had acquired through mysterious means of his own. She had thought it wise not to inquire.

"I have eccess, immediately, to five thousand dollars. Will that be enough, do you think? I believe I can get more if they are needed."

Penny blinked.

"Hon, aren't you _lucky_ you met me?" she said. "Sweetie, you can stay in my apartment tonight. It's just across the hallway. Tomorrow, we are going _shopping!_ Bernie, Amy, are you in?"

"You bet!" Bernadette squeaked. She practically bounced in her place in anticipation.

"All set, bezzie!" Amy grinned. "Between us, we can get this gal looking _Californian_!"

She slapped a hand on Johanna's shoulder in an awkwardly friendly way.

Leonard nodded.

"No offence, Professor Stibbons, but your clothes are a bit... strange. If you're spending any amount of time here, you need to blend in. Between Howard and me, we should be able to dress you so that you don't attract attention. We're about the same height and build."

"Leonard!" Bernadette squeaked. "You want him to blend in and not look strange, and you're offering to let him borrow YOUR clothes? Or HOWARD'S?"

"And just don't introduce him to your mom, Howard. The poor guy's gonna be a prisoner for life. She's worse than Area 51!"

"hey, with my mom he'll wish he _was_ locked up in Fifty-One with the other aliens." Howard replied.

Ponder accepted the offer of local clothing with thanks – he was quite taken with Leonard's shapeless olive-coloured parka with the blue hood. He wore similar things himself, after all. He thought Leonard looked quite stylish in it. He also made a quick decision.

"HEX, can you hear me?"

++I hear you perfectly, Professor Stibbons.++

The disembodied voice that appeared to come out of Sheldon Cooper's computer terminal made everyone jump.

"Hey!" Sheldon protested. "That's my laptop! You'd better have a good reason for that!"

++Hello, Doctor Cooper++It is a pleasure to make contact with a mind such as yours++Do not be alarmed++I have simply spoken to the admittedly rather primitive artificial intelligence that powers your machine, and it has allowed me to make use of it in order to communicate with you++When I leave, I assure you I will leave no trace and take nothing away with me++ By the way, there is an error in your calculations concerning seven-dimensional phase space in superstring accretions++I have taken the liberty of correcting it and I will take you through the mathematical logic, if you will permit me++

"I don't make mistakes in my math!" Sheldon exclaimed, indignant.

"Sheldon." Leonard said, mildly. "If an alien supercomputer far in advance of anything we can devise takes over your PC, reads your files, and tells you you've screwed up the math, if I were you I'd accept it with good grace."

Sheldon, all else forgotten, stomped angrily over to remonstrate with HEX.

Ponder Stibbons said, hurriedly, "HEX? Please power down and immobilise the device until we need it again? Then you can consult with Doctor Cooper. Thank you."

"Very wise." Howard Wolowitz said, as the lights on the Travelling Engine flickered and died and the residual faint hum faded to nothing. "Never leave your vehicle unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Not this car, and not around Sheldon. He'll want to go joyriding. Can't even drive a car, but give him a spaceship to play with and suddenly he's Captain Kirk."

"It's not that I don't trust you." Ponder said. "But some things are perhaps too big a temptation. If we lose this, or anything happens to it, we're stranded here."

"No mothership, huh?" Leonard said. "Just direct transfer from your world to ours?"

"The two are closely interlinked, in some ways we understand and in many ways we don't." Ponder admitted. "We all speak the same language, for instance. The close resonance allows for travel between worlds."

"You're not using a universal translator?" Howard exclaimed. He was surprised. And slightly disappointed.

"There are... similar things." Ponder said, deciding not to broach the topic of magic, just yet. He was intrigued by this world's casual acceptance that if for instance you needed light, you flicked a switch in the wall and it just, well, happened. Ponder had a few vague ideas as to what sort of magic fuelled this. Linguistic spells for mutual understanding would sound freakish to Roundworlders, he suspected.

"Come and eat." Leonard urged him. "We've got some Chinese food still. We can warm it up in the kitchen if it needs it. Looks like Sheldon's gonna be too busy to eat, what with arguing with your computer, so you may as well have his share. Then we can fix you a bed for the night."

Leonard paused.

"None of my business, I know, but are you and Doctor Smith-Rhodes, you know... errr?"

Ponder nodded.

"And you and Penny are... errr?" he asked. He'd seen the little signs too.

"On and off". Leonard admitted.

"Almost as good as science, isn't it?" Ponder said.

They looked at each other and laughed. In the background, Bernadette and Penny were trying to explain Roundworld clothing conventions to Johanna.

**_Part Two beckons!_**

What is the _real_ reason why HEX is so keen for Ponder Stibbons to make contact with a group of very bright academics and loveably dim human beings at Caltech?

Will downtown Pasadena survive a shopping trip that includes Johanna Smith-Rhodes?

Will Sheldon get punched?

Will the Caltech administration start asking awkward questions as to exactly _which _academic institution conferred a Professorate on Ponder Stibbons?

Coming soon!

* * *

**(1) **OK, it's not original. But the authors of _The Big Bang Theory _are demonstrably fluent in the language of science-fiction works. _Red Dwarf _is one of many references and shout-outs which are strewn liberally about. So giving Bernadette the famous pinball smile attributed to Lister's love interest Krissie Kochanski... it fits. You only have to look at Mellisa Rauch's character to understand the phrase. OK, so this makes Howard Wolowski into Dave Lister. But like Lister, Howard went into space as a very unlikely astronaut only to do the equivalent of servicing the chicken-soup dispensers on the International Space Station, and like Lister, initial awe was replaced by a sensation of how bloody _dull_ the view was. It all fits. Especially if you view Sheldon Cooper as a man whose quirks and OCD make Arnold Rimmer look normal.

**(2) **Sheldon Cooper's mother is called Mary. Sheldon's name is affectionately contracted to Shelley. Mary Wolstonecroft Shelley wrote the novel _**Frankenstein**_ – Mary effectively created and gave literary birth to the monster. Go figure.

**(3) **The omniscope had once linked to something called a _palantir_ in a place called Middle-Earth, a device enabled by its own world's technomancy to see everything, everywhere. It had caused no end of bother.

**(4) **The Rogi is the opposite of an Igor. They're good at dismantling people. Only not so hot at re-assembling them afterwards.


	2. The Drooling Autotrophs Exposition

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_**Chapter two, Part one: the boys.**_

_And we're back. Take a group of maladjusted and socially awkward academics. People with formidable intellects who still, nevertheless, are suspected of only being able to get their shoes on the right feet every morning only after two tries. Then introduce them to the cast of The Big Bang Theory. Engineer a meeting across the howling vast emptiness of space, time, and Wheeler-Bell probability space with a side of Copenhagen Interpretation garnished with EPR hypotheses and Bohr's Law. Add the sort of normally high-functioning women who are devoted to their men and have to guard them from harm. Also add a devious supercomputer which is mindful of the Prime Directive of the Roundworld. Stand back and watch._

The five guys gathered in a third-floor apartment at 2311 N. Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, California,** (1)** sat in a tense almost-circle around the table. The Chinese food from earlier in the evening had been cleared away. Something even more important was grabbing their attention. Even Sheldon Cooper was silent, concentrating on issues of great importance.

Nobody spoke. The moment was tense. Finally Sheldon called "I play _Broccoli Infestation._ This blocks your road to the Mystic Tower of Doom with a sudden sprouting of the said nutritious and rather yummy edible vegetable which grows to a magically enhanced height as far as the eye can see. I therefore call, raise, and take your Barbarian Hero card, for as we all know, a manly barbarian hero used to a somewhat binding and cholesterol-heavy diet of red meat will sicken and weaken when confronted with his loathed nemesis, vegetarian food. I win!"

Ponder Stibbons sighed. He looked at the cards in his hand and reflected that after a fortnight in the wilderness, the barbarian heroes he'd met at home would happily eat _anything_. They were practical people who at that point would have shrugged, hacked down towering man-sized broccoli florets, and stewed them, looking forward to half a spit-roasted cow when they got back to the City. Still, this game was all about these peoples' perceptions of life on a world driven by magic...

He deliberately laid down a card. There were shocked gasps of awe from Leonard, Raj and Howard.

"I play _Enchanted Bunny_". Ponder said. Sheldon glared at him, but with a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

"Explain your reasoning, Professor Stibbons?"

"Rabbits eat broccoli. A sudden plague of enchanted magically-driven brassica should logically be countered and neutralised by a magically-enhanced rabbit. Err... my road to the Mystic Tower is now clear."

Ponder was from Ankh-Morpork. He had a layman's understanding of brassica. It was 75% of the city's staple diet, after all. And he was also aware of the continual war of cabbage farmer versus rabbit. And he was a magic-user in more ways than his hosts knew...

Howard gave a whistle of appreciation.

"He has got you there, Sheldon!" Raj said, grinning.

"That is the first time I have ever seen _anyone, anywhere, _ find a use for _Enchanted Bunny_." Leonard remarked. "Awesome play, Ponder!"

"I concede." Sheldon said. He paused, and appeared to struggle with himself. "Well played, Professor."

"Hey, there's a _Mystic Warlords of Ka'a _tournament on at the comic shop next week." Howard said. "There's a thousand-dollar first prize. You gotta play, Ponder. You're a _natural_! With you on our team we'll walk it."

Ponder reddened slightly. He wasn't used to lavish praise. He worked with Mustrum Ridcully and had to deal with the Faculty every day. This was new to him.

The guys had invited him into a game of Mystic Warlords to break the ice. Once Ponder had worked out the gaming system and made allowances for this world's perception of how a world running on magic operated, he had proven very good at it. The game was based on fighting and back-stabbing and competition between wizards, barbarian heroes, thieves, Assassins and other magic users. With Ponder's training as a wizard and his experience of Unseen University's paranoid infighting to draw on, it had been a pleasant theoretical exercise in magical combat. Only with no actual and potentially lethal spells being cast. He had found it quite pleasant. He wondered if a version of this game could be created for the Discworld, to sharpen the skills of student wizards in thinking quickly under pressure and selecting the appropriate spell for the situation. Casting real spells – but by proxy – and learning from multiple "deaths" how to get it right next time.

"Retreating to that tower you built with _Instant Engineering_." Raj said. "Amazing strategy! Just locking yourself into a magical tower to let your energy recuperate and sitting out a few rounds. How did you think of that?"

"Err.." Ponder said. Building an impregnable magical tower was the default position for a wizard under stress. He'd done it out of some primal instinct that bypassed the conscious centres of his brain. It was something he hadn't needed to think about. A little thought in a back of his mind prickled for attention, suggesting to him that his own version of the wizard's tower, his power-base and source of prestige and reputation, was the High Energy Magic Building.

_Would it hurt if I took Dr Cooper or Dr Hofstadter back to the University with me and showed them the HEM? _he wondered._ With Sheldon, I could always explain to him that this is the, er, Mother-Ship he's been going on about. I'll consult with HEX..._

It was well after midnight, but nobody seemed in any hurry to find sleep or even go home to their own rooms. This was normal for research wizards at Home, who would happily pull all-nighters fuelled by pizza or pies from the Night Kitchen. Ponder felt relaxed among a group of kindred spirits. It was like being with the old crew, Adrian Turnipseed, Drongo, and the rest.

Sheldon was meticulously and fussily gathering the _Mystic Warlords of Ka'a_ cards together and sorting them into their tins.

"Doctor Cooper, where could I acquire a set of these cards?" Ponder asked. "I'd q uite like to take one home with me."

"Comic Book Shop." said Howard Wolowitz. "You gotta join us there, Ponder. There's this great guy called Stuart. Hey, bring a couple more girls from your homeworld and introduce them. Gets you discount!"

"_Any_ girls." Leonard said.

Ponder thought of Big Dave, who ran the Pins, Stamps and Agatean Comic-Books Emporium at home. He had similar problems with attracting girls into his shop. For some reason they were deterred from going into a place that smelt of haphazard personal hygiene and was full of socially awkward males. He anticipated this would be a Roundworld version of the same. Then he thought of the girls he knew best on the Discworld. For unavoidable personal and professional reasons, they were mainly witches and Lady Assassins. He speculated briefly on the sort of little _faux pas_ that a Howard Wolowitz might – very briefly - perpetrate to a young witch of the Lancre school, or to, for argument's sake, Miss Alice Band. They were, in the main, not temperamentally inclined to hang out at Dave's. He restrained a shudder.

"All in good time, gentlemen." he said. "What other social games do you play?"

"Are you familiar with Jenga, Professor Stibbons?" Sheldon Cooper asked. Ponder blinked. Jenga on the Discworld was played by the more spatially aware trolls, who used massive rectangular blocks of granite. By order of the Patrician, they were constrained to play it in wide-open spaces where a toppling stack of a hundred half-ton stone blocks would not endanger neighbouring buildings.

"That's best with more players." said Leonard. "A shame the girls called it a night and went over to Penny's".

Rajesh Kooprathali stirred.

"Professor, Doctor Smith-Rhodes was explaining to me about your homeworld." he said. "As you know I am an astro-physicist and this is my area of professional expertise. Even so, I find it incredible!"

Leonard nodded. "We read about visitors from other worlds who may or may not have visited people here." he said. "There's a school of thought that they conceal themselves by deliberately talking about things that are so... incredible. That the people they talk to will never be taken seriously and get laughed out of court if they go public. The visitors get to make contact and find out about us, but they deliberately make themselves ambiguous and make it look as if the people they've contacted are deluded, making it up, or imagining it. This Discworld of yours..."

++It exists, Doctor Hofstatder.++ HEX said, from out of thin air. ++Please be assured, it is no sophisticated strategy to inculcate disbelief by deliberately spreading half-truths and nonsensical propositions.++ Had I wanted to do that, I would not have chosen scientifically trained intellects++ Rather, we would have materialised to an unsophisticated farmer in Nebraska with no discernable scientific training++

There was a silent pause. Then Sheldon said

"But _Penny's _ an unsophisticated farm-girl from Nebraska with no discernable scientific training!"

++Bad example.++ said HEX. ++But she voluntarily associates with the four of you. ++And she has a good, albeit untrained, mind++Her friends are scientifically trained++ And scientific education, Doctor Cooper, is where you find it++

"But understand my position." Raj said. "I am in a dream situation for an astro-physicist. I have made contact with intelligences from a different world. Knowledge I glean from you could revolutionise my profession. It could make my academic name. And then I discover there is no way I can tell anybody about it without destroying my intellectual and professional credibility, because you claim to be from a flat earth!"

"Which sits on the back of four elephants. Which in turn ride on the back of a giant turtle." added Howard. "How the photon does it _work_?"

"I would have thought you of all people would immediately believe in their Discworld." Sheldon Cooper said, looking at Raj. "After all, exactly the same cosmological myth underpins the Hindu religion, of which you are a member? In which the turtle Kurmarajah is created by fiat of the god Vishnu and in some versions carries the world supporting mountain Mount Meru, and which in others supports four..."

"Sheldon, you ass, I've told you _before _not to try and explain my own religion and culture to me!" Raj retorted, heatedly. "It's bloody annoying! Do I explain Christianity to _you_?"

"There is no need, although I appreciate the offer to reciprocate." Sheldon said, unaffected by his friend's flash of anger. "I have my mother for that."

"And, Professor Stibbons, that is the other part of my difficulty." Raj said, looking woebegone. "As a Hindu, the idea of the world-turtle makes sense to me and I believe it to be true as a Hindu, although the astro-physicist I became tells me it is so much bull-crap."

"Don't you mean _sacred_ bull-crap?" Howard said, slyly. Raj glared at him.

"Sorry!" said Howard.

++Doctor Koothrapali, would you care to step close to the computer monitor?++ HEX asked. ++Because of a flight outside of the Discworld's atmosphere which took~~~~recording devices~~~ with it, I am able to show you images from my database++Please observe++

The four Caltech scientists clustered around Sheldon's lap-top. The screen flickered, and resolved itself into a fuzzy image which gradually resolved itself into a very clear picture of Great A'Tuin swimming through space. Three of the four world-elephants were visible from this angle, supporting the clouded shape of the Discworld on their shoulders, the Rimfall cascading and glittering with the eight colours of the Discworld rainbow.

Again, Leonard blinked, seeing the shaped ragged ribbon in space that indicated the eighth colour, the octarine. It was a thing of amazing beauty.

"Is anybody else seeing what I'm seeing?" he murmured, in awe.

"Could be clever Photoshop." Howard frowned.

"Sure, if Photoshop can create an eighth colour nobody's ever seen before." said Leonard, who now believed.

"What _are_ you talking about, Leonard?"

"You can actually _see_ the Octarine?" Ponder burst out. _I'll have to get Leonard to visit the Discworld. It could be he's a natural wizard and it's latent over here. We can test him for magic._

"Hey, don't go dissing my religion by saying holy Vishnu did it with CorelDraw and Photoshop! Praised be the name of Vishnu!"

"How does the water stay on?" demanded Howard. "Hey, if it's continually cascading over the sides like that, you're gonna run out of seas and rivers and junk."

"We're not sure." Ponder admitted. "We believe Arrangements Are Made."

"Isn't it _obvious_, Howard?" demanded Sheldon Cooper. "Evidently it works like Middle-Earth, which in its origins was a flat plane akin to this Discworld. We are told that before the fall of Numenor-Atalante in the days of the last King, who fell into evil and worshipped Sauron, thus necessitating the Valar to lay down their stewardship and call upon the One, who refashioned Middle-Earth into a more conventional geoid, that the Vala Ulmo, the Lord of the Waters, assisted by his legions of servants, laboured to recycle the water through the hidden caverns of the Earth back into the seas and rivers."

Sheldon paused, looked dissaprovingly down his nose at Howard, and added "It's little slips like this that explain why you haven't got a doctorate, Mr Wolowitz."

"Chandogya Upanishad, tat tvam asi..." intoned Raj. "Hari Om! May my limbs, speech, Prana, eye, ear, strength and all my senses grow vigorous. All and everything is the Brahman of the _**Upanishads**_. May I never deny **..."**

Ponder, caught between competing religions, coughed uncertainly. He noted the whiteboard towards the back of the room.

"Gentlemen, if I may have your leave. How do these pens work... ah, I've got it. Clever devices! You may be asking how our Discworld exists. I will concede it looks a little odd by the standards of those used to spherical Roundworlds. But let me explain a concept graphically..."

Ponder drew a typical graph with x and y axes. He then drew a wavy line from top left to bottom right.

"Hey, that's the Hertzpring-Russell curve!" Raj said, snapping out of his religious epiphany. Ponder nodded.

"Quite so, Doctor Kooprathali." Ponder said, making a mental note of its name on this world. "It maps out the distribution of types of suns and by extention, the predicted types of planetary bodies likely to accrete around them. Now we know everything stemmed from a threshold event sometime right at the absolute very beginning of time and space."

"The Big Bang." Sheldon Cooper said, with reverence.

"Quite so, Doctor Cooper. Now imagine suns and planetary bodies accreting from the debris matter distributed by this trigger event. As the accretions grow larger, gravity becomes a stronger force in and around them. In the manner of molten lead abruptly cooled by dropping it into water in a hot-tower, we can predict that the accretions will become, in the vast majority of cases, roughly spherical. This enables us to superimpose a standard statistical probability curve over the Hertzpring-Russell line. In this case, the Bell Curve. We can say that probability dictates that the vast majority of planetary formations fit in here, where the bell bulges tallest. But this leaves the two extremes of the bell curve – here and here. Not every world is a spheroid."

Ponder was in his element. With minds much like his own, which thought and debated in the same way, and which liked nothing more than to debate an abstract notion until the cows came home. But something was missing here.

"Leonard?" he asked. "Your world is incredibly advanced. You must have discovered... pizza?"

Leonard Hofstadter got the point immediately.

"I'll order some in." he said, reaching for his cellphone. "What's your preference, Ponder?"

Ponder grinned. _Now_ the all-nighter was complete.

And across the hallway, the girls had been breaking the ice in their own way...

* * *

**(1) **This takes place in a different phase of the Multiverse from the Roundworld we know and which the wizards of Unseen University normally visit. The fact that this is, from our perspective, an alternate Earth is conclusively proven by the fact that on our phase of the Earth, N. Los Robles Avenue exists in Pasadena, California, U.S.A. But its street numbers end just after 2000. The BBT continuum demonstrably exists in an alternate Earth with a far longer N. Los Robles Avenue. It's also one made poorer by the unfortunate (for its residents) fact that Sir Terry Pratchett, if he exists there, never became an author. Or else the Discworld would be referenced on the TV show and the boys would know who Ponder Stibbons is. Thanks to the location field-trip referenced on the BBT Wiki, for facts about N. Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, CA.

Next: how the girls broke the ice. Hairstyling and mutual grooming may be involved, as well as nostalgic tales of life on the family farm. The Nebraska Junior RodeoCchampion meets the Natal Province Whip Skills Under-Thirteen champion.


	3. The Princess Leeia Excitation

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_**Chapter two, Part two: the girls.**_

_And we're back. Take a group of maladjusted and socially awkward academics. People with formidable intellects who still, nevertheless, are suspected of only being able to get their shoes on the right feet every morning only after two tries. Then introduce them to the cast of The Big Bang Theory. Engineer a meeting across the howling vast emptiness of space, time, and Wheeler-Bell probability space with a side of Copenhagen Interpretation garnished with EPR hypotheses and Bohr's Law. Add the sort of normally high-functioning women who are devoted to their men and have to guard them from harm. Also add a devious supercomputer which is mindful of the Prime Directive of the Roundworld. Stand back and watch._

_We have just seen how three out of four of the guys, for reasons ranging from a child-like wonder fuelled with science-fiction works, to a deeply ingrained religious conviction, have accepted the existence of the Discworld in its own remote little niche of time and space and probability. The fourth is wavering, but the sheer weight of circumstantial evidence is gradually tipping his pragmatic engineer's mind to the point of acceptance. _

_Meanwhile over the hallway in apartment 4c, four girls are also engaged in conversation as to the most important issues of three-dimensional spatial awareness within the fourth dimension of time. But first a final glimpse of five scientifically-minded males debating the wonders of observational epistemology allowing them to make sense of the most mysterious thing in their universe..._

Ponder Stibbons, HEX and Sheldon Cooper were nosily debating the precise nature of the quantum imperative that had brought the visitors here, in between frequent pizza-breaks. Ponder had discovered after close scrutiny of the menu that pepperoni with jalapeno was the nearest equivalent to a Klatchian Hot, and privately judged the taste to be superior to home. He swallowed his bite, and suggested they go back to first principles, with ∂ = h(ƒ – ƒ0). , which, as everyone knows, led inexorably to Eⱪ = hƒ - ∂ = h(ƒ – ƒ0). Sheldon considered this, and then riposted with the irrefutable proposition that the threshold frequency, _f_0, is the frequency of a photon whose energy is equal to the work function: it therefore followed on that at the quantum level, the threshold frequency on its own was insufficient to liberate an electron from the parent atom, which had repercussions at both the micro sub-atomic level and the macro level of the real world we inhabit. He then took a bite of his Giacomo special with buffalo chicken wing and Pringles.

Leonard sat back and watched the intellectual sparring, quietly following the arguments and willing Ponder on: the guy from the Discworld seemed to be more than holding his own with Sheldon. Were any judges watching, he thought it might well go to a points decision after fifteen rounds.

Meanwhile, Howard and Raj were examining the travelling machine. Leonard had no worries: he suspected the device had been security-locked to an extent that not even Howard's admittedly gifted (if warped) engineering skills could unlock.

"Freaky." Howard said. "this black glass panel on the dashboard. I could swear it's looking back at me. There's something big in there. Hey, HEX. Is this some kinda coiled flux capacitor that drives your TARDIS?"

++Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, Howard?++I like the acronym++It is both descriptive and concise++I am computing its origins++ Stand by++ Ah, it is copyright to a Mr Terry Nation and the British Broadcasting Corporation++ It is interesting that in this phase of the Roundworld, the Time Lords are only an entertaining theatrical construct, an imaginative fiction, if you will.++

HEX paused.

++Howard, you are looking into an omniscope.++ At present it is set for Abyss, which is its default state++And anyone in tune with advanced notions in thaumomancy will know that indeed, the Abyss, when you stare into it, looks back at you.++ The omniscope is a mirror on all worlds.++It is theoretically possible to use it across the infinite span of the Multiverse and view anything, anywhen++

Leonard, who knew what was coming next, counted to ten. He got as far as five.

++And no, Howard.++I cannot set it to "Penny's Bedroom" for you. ++This would be unethical, and besides, the local computer intelligence advises me that after the issue with the teddy bear and the web-cam, Penny was extremely emphatic in her desire that there be no repetition. ++ Besides, I have no available sensors in her apartment++ Her computer terminal is switched off as are most other electronic devices with a screen++ I am therefore blind and deaf to events in Apartment 4c++

"Well, you can't blame a guy for asking" Howard said, sheepishly. Then a little point nagging for attention kneed his hypothalamus in the groin and made a takeover bid for the higher cortex.

"HEX – did you say _Time Lords_?"

++I did, Howard.++Do you wish to know more?++

* * *

The four girls had retreated over the hall to Apartment 4c. Johanna had washed – _such a bathroom!_ - and was wearing nightclothes borrowed from Penny – _such comfortable clothing! -_, who had promised to put her regular clothing through the wash and lend her things to wear on their shopping trip tomorrow. Some of her additional personal accoutrements had caused a small stir.

"Hon, does everyone on your world wear so many weapons?" Penny had asked, confronted with sheathed throwing knives strapped to both arms and upper thighs. Penny had had a moment's doubt about this, but Johanna, judging herself safe, had happily unstrapped them and placed them casually on the table. Alongside the other throwing knives she had retrieved from her boots.

"Well, I cerry more than most." she had admitted. "I em a teacher..."

"Wow, they say American high schools have a problem." Bernadette had squeaked.

"What sort of highschoolers do you _teach_?" Amy asked. _She has an obsession with weapons. Interesting. Are we dealing with a borderline psychopath here? Sociopathically maladjusted? But she seems so _normal._ Oh, let me get this girl in a CAT-scan! _

"Et the Guild school." Johanna said. "We hev pupils of both sexes from eleven to eighteen. My girls ere generally pleasant end well-edjusted. But the place where I live is inherently dangerous. You hev to keep your wits ebout you on the street."

"Sounds like Watts or Compton. Or the old Jungles down East Third." mused Bernadette.

"Just knives and that freaking great sword?" Penny asked. "You've not upgraded to guns?"

"Lord Vetinari does not ellow _gonnes_." she said. "They are known, _ja._ Periodically a clever person believes he or she is the first person to hev invented them. But they very quickly end up in a position where they no longer can invent clever things. Or indeed breathe. The Watch ere good."

"The Watch. Like a police force? Like the LAPD?"

"We have Sam Vimes, who commends the city Watch. I myself em a pert-time policewoman. It is interesting work. Especially in the Shades end the more unbiddable immigrent areas."

"The Shades. Bad part of town, sweetie?"

"Bernadette hes mentioned Watts end Compton. From the way she said it, these ere the Shades of your city?"

"Oh God, are they _bad_!" Penny agreed. "You avoid going to Watts, sweetie. If you have to drive through Watts, keep every door locked, all the windows rolled up and a weapon where you can reach it."

Johanna nodded.

"_Exectly_ like the Shades, then. Only with _gonnes_? There is no _gonne-control_ in this country? "

Penny breathed in. Johanna had the uneasy feeling she'd dropped a _faux-pas_.

"Sweetie, back home in Nebraska, that's a dirty word. Mention "gun-control" in Omaha and at least ten people are gonna shoot you, just to give you a little hint that they don't want none."

"Speak to me of this Nebraska?"

Penny did, with feeling and a little nostalgia. Johanna nodded.

"I em from the ferming country myself." she said. "The nearest town of any size is perhaps a day's ride away. I grew up on a veldt ferm in the sweet veldt-grass country. My femily ere self-sufficient in most things, end live reasonebly well by selling or trading the surplus."

"Two farm-girls together, sweetie!" Penny exclaimed, offering Johanna a fist bump. After some hesitation, Johanna fist-bumped.

"Tell me." she said. "Sheldon Cooper. Efter being in a room with him for five minutes, I honestly wented to punch him. Is this normal or is it just me?"

Bernadette spluttered. Under Amy's stare, she tried to go innocently poker-faced.

"Well, sweetie," said Penny, thoughtfully, "Most people kinda don't wait as long as five minutes. Trust me on this."

"Ah. It is a common reaction, then. But whet held me beck. Pertly the mission we ere on. Pertly because Sheldon reminds you of... well, an enimel cub. A puppy or a kitten it would be cruel to be unkind to. A baby enimel who does not know the rules yet."

"_Soft kitty, warm kitty..._" hummed Penny. Johanna found herself knowing the tune. She regressed to six years old.

"_Weinig bal van bont..." **(3)** _she hummed, remembering her old _ouma._

"Gotta be in English, hon. Sheldon would call you on that. And we gotta do it start to finish with no interruptions."

They started again, taking the lines in turn between the four of them. Oddly, they felt closer afterwards. Penny fetched a bottle of wine and four glasses.

"_Mijn ouma. Ouma mijn. Mi'ouma. Mee-maw. _It fits. Somebody imperfectly remembering the Von.. _Afrikaans – _could contrect the phrase to _mee-maw_. Although it is true thet in Sto Ke... _Holland... _a grendmother is elso an _opie_."

"See what I mean?" Penny said, uncorking the bottle. "Sheldon gets under your skin. Like some kinda itchy rash."

"He has a fascinating mind." Amy Farrah-Fowler said. "I find his company to be very intellectually stimulating."

"Well, I'm so glad he manages to stimulate _something_ of yours, sweetie." Penny said. She kept a perfectly straight face. Amy flinched.

"So this shopping trip we're going on tomorrow?" Bernadette prompted.

"Four of us bezzie girls on a mission." Amy said. "Seriously cool!"

"Just that we need to know your sizes, Johanna." Bernadette added. "For instance, what size brassière do you take?"

"Hey, good point!" Penny said. "If you don't have good underwear, you got nothing. It's gotta fit well and feel good. You agree, Bernie?"

Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz was only just five feet tall. But she was perfectly proportioned, with, Johanna could not help noticing, two parts of her being proportioned more perfectly than the rest. She nodded emphatically.

"Good for the guys, too! Howie appreciates good underwear."

Johanna picked up the wine bottle and noted it was a Kleine Draken Chardonnay from the Zandwych vineyards in the Western Cape.

"A Sed-Efrrikan wine." she said, approvingly. It was as good as anything from home. Penny smiled.

"Taste of home, sweetie? I got this from work. We usually have a few foreign wines for people who prefer them. Most of our customers prefer local Californian wine, though. It's cheaper, for one thing."

"Thank you." Johanna said.

" Brassière size?" prompted Amy. She sounded a shade too eager, Johanna thought. _Ah well, _she thought._ When in Klatch..._

"I take a medium, I think." Johanna said, vaguely.

"Excuse me?" Penny said, taken aback.

"A medium size. Brassières in my world come in three sizes, small, medium, end large." She paused, and thought of Sybil Vimes.

"End extra-large."

She paused and thought again of Queen Margrat of Lancre, who she had met once.

"End there ere liberty bodices for those who ere not especially favoured end hev little to control. Very young teenage girls, end the more _petite_ adult. Myself, I em too big for a small, end too small for a large. So a medium it must be."

Penny and Bernadette sat with lower jaws falling open as Johanna explained the approximate nature of bra-fitting on the Discworld. **(4)**

Penny shook herself, disbelievingly.

"Sweetie, let's get you properly _measured._" she decided.

Amy Farrah-Fowler had been hastily digging around in her bag. To nobody's surprise, she brought out a tape-measure.

"Ooh, me, me, me! Let me do it!" she said, bouncing up and down in excitement. Johanna wondered about this. She was cosmopolitan. She knew about the Blue Cat Club and had socially visited with a party of girls on the quaffing circuit. She also worked closely with Miss Alice Band. She sighed, and let the excitedly smiling Amy take her measurements. However, she _still_ felt Amy lingered slightly too long, for her comfort, over measuring her.

"Amy, sweetie? You don't need to weigh them up by hand to work out cup size." Penny said, hurriedly. "I make that a 34C."

"Any scientific measurement should be replicable and repeatable." Amy stated. "Can I do it again?"

"_No_, Amy!" Penny and Bernadette chorused together.

Johanna felt the strange Amy looking fondly at her.

"I really, really, like your hair." Amy said. "The way you had it braided when we first saw you."

"That braiding style is common in my native country." Johanna said. A spirit of mischief tapped her on the shoulder. She felt she somehow had to get even for the suspicious breast-fondling, but in a non-lethal manner. For private amusement.

"If you so wish, I cen show you. Your hair is long enough."

Amy's hair was long, lank and very slightly greasy, but many women on the Discworld had worse, up to and including colonies of livestock. Johanna was not deterred by this and got to work, giving a running explanation as to what she was doing and why.

"While there are also finer end more complex Quirmian... _French_... braids, a good stert is to create two long braids in the Kerrigian... _Dutch._.. style, and heving done so, what I cen do now is roll end pin them in various weys. Penny, hev you got pins? Thenk you. Now if I roll the braids up just so, end secure them here, above each ear... this is called _schnecken_ in my lenguage."

She sat back to admire her handiwork. Yes, there was a resemblence... Amy Farrah-Fowler with her hair done up like that, a coiled braid pinned over each ear, was a young Maccalariat. Johanna smiled to herself.

Amy looked at herself in a mirror and gasped with pleasure.

"Johanna. Is it possible to... you know, lower the coils so they sit on my ears? I am thinking of Sheldon here. There is a particular look I believe he would be susceptible to. One that might excite his lower cerebral cortex and stimulate a certain physical reflex."

"Hey, I can see that!" Penny said. "What do you think, Bernie?"

"Oooh, just don't go near my Howie looking like Princess Leeia!"

"This isn't meant for Howard. Believe me!"

Johanna turned to Penny, who filled her in.

"Sheldon and Amy have been sorta dating for seven years. In all that time they've never..."

"What, _never_?"

"Never."

Johanna shook her head. "Show me how to edjust the coils. Do you hev pictures of this princess?"

A photo of Carrie Fisher was provided in her iconic role, in the trademark long white dress. Johanna understood.

"You would dress like this to provoke a reaction from Sheldon, yesno?"

"She also wore a minimal golden bikini." Amy said. "If necessary, I would wear that."

"Bad idea, sweetie." Penny said, hurriedly. "You gotta keep _some_ things mysterious for your man." She showed Johanna another photo of Princess Leeia, this time wearing a lot less and chained, as far as Johanna could tell, to a repulsive slug-like creature. Her mind boggled at the thought of a young Maccalariat dressed in so little.

"The long white dress is more subtle, certainly." Johanna agreed. There was perhaps only so much bared flesh a man as rarefied as Sheldon Cooper might tolerate. And if the bared flesh belonged to Amy Farrah-Fowler, it might well provoke the opposite reaction.

"We'll have to think of bedding down soon." Penny said. "I guess the guys across the hall are set for an all-nighter. Howard won't be coming over here to collect you any time soon. So you're both welcome to stay."

"I should drive home." Amy said. "Bernadette, if we assume Howard is too engrossed in things to remember he is married to you, I could drive you home, and he can follow on when he's ready?"

"Sounds like a plan!" the cheerful Bernadette agreed. "So we meet here tomorrow, around ten-thirty?"

" I need to find a Princess Leeia costume." Amy remarked, her face set. "Perhaps tomorrow, Stuart at the comic shop could put me in touch with one."

"Just... don't go into a shop full of comic geeks looking even _remotely _like Princess Leeia". Penny advised her, poker faced. "You'd cause a riot, sweetie."

* * *

(1) I'm not sure if the equations will translate to the FanFic format. They say in the _**Science of Discworld**_ books that every equation you put in halves the readership of your work. In which case, as I've quoted three, this is a bit of an "Oh dear" moment. But this one is to do with Planck's Constant, which according to my background reading is a basic building-block of quantum theory and I hope I've used more or less accurately in the context. Goodness knows what the Discworld name for it is: the One Short Plank theory of quantum mechanics? Still, it's all about quantum, and mathematics, logically, should be an unchanging universal language across the Universe. NASA used maths and chemistry for this reason as part of the SETI thing, reasoning that an alien civilisation should be able to do the math, or realise they were looking at a schematic for simple chemical reactions involving water.

The quoted equation should read something like Eⱪ = hƒ - ∂ = h(ƒ – ƒ0). Although I'm not sure if the Greek letter in the middle is a ∂ or a φ or something else. Probably a φ. Ponder should be familiar with Ephebian letters, anyway.

_(3) Weinig..._ (trans) "Little Ball of Fur". But you'd worked this out, hadn't you?

(4) The system known today, of sizing bras by a combination of chest measurement and a letter of the alphabet to denote cup size, was not introduced, (and then only in a basic form,) until 1932. It did not become commonplace and standardized until the late 1940's – the 1950's in some nations. (There, I selflessly research these things so you don't have to). The Discworld largely reflects Earth, especially a combination of Great Britain and the USA, as it was in the Industrial Revolution-Edwardian period – no earlier that 1800 (albeit with a few pockets stuck in much earlier times) and no later than about 1910. It follows on that sizing women's underwear would be as approximate and haphazard as Johanna is relating here.


	4. The Linnaean Clasification Fallacy

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_**Chapter two, Part two: the girls.**_

_And we're back. Take a group of maladjusted and socially awkward academics. People with formidable intellects who still, nevertheless, are suspected of only being able to get their shoes on the right feet every morning only after two tries. Then introduce them to the cast of The Big Bang Theory. Engineer a meeting across the howling vast emptiness of space, time, and Wheeler-Bell probability space with a side of Copenhagen Interpretation garnished with EPR hypotheses and Bohr's Law. Add the sort of normally high-functioning women who are devoted to their men and have to guard them from harm. Also add a devious supercomputer which is mindful of the Prime Directive of the Roundworld. Stand back and watch._

_Sheldon has seriously vivid bad dreams. Everyone gets to hear about them. _

And eventually, everyone slept. Ponder Stibbons, who was absolutely banned from entering Sheldon's room, crashed out on an air-bed on Leonard Hofstadter's floor. Leonard apologised for the makeshift arrangement, asking Ponder if he wouldn't mind finishing off blowing it up as otherwise it might bring on his asthma. HEX, at this point, reminded Leonard he had a device in the trunk of his car for reinflating tyres, which was foot-operated. Surely this could be adapted to an airbed?

Ponder eventually slept, finding the inflated mattress underneath him to be luxuriously comfortable. It appeared to be made from a sort of Dennisized fabric.**(1)** Dwarfs made that on the Discworld. He made a mental note that this might be a useful subsidiary item for the Thaumatological Park to copyright. Cut a joint deal with some capable Dwarfs... then he slept. Only to be woken up by...

* * *

Across the hall, Penny and Johanna shared a bed for convenience. It allowed them to carry on lazily chatting into sleep, an arrangement Johanna found pleasant and restful. She regularly shared a tent with people on wilderness expeditions: sometimes, if it was cold enough, a sleeping bag. Back in her first year in Ankh-Morpork when the shock of a Central Continent winter first hit her, she and her room-mate Alice Band had shared a bed for warmth. So this was an arrangement she liked and found comfort in, especially with somebody as sympathetic and congenial as Penny.

"He can drive me nuts." Penny said. "With his geekiness and his allergies and his general Leonard Hofstadter crankiness. But hon, he's just back from doing his scientific research on a boat in the North Sea. And I really, really, missed him while he was gone. You know?"

"Ja." Johanna said. "I understand. I really do. I feel much the same ebout Ponder. I edore him, but sometimes you want to take him by the ears end shake him. You sense he does not quite live in the same world es the rest of us. He requires strong firm correction sometimes."

Penny laughed.

"Leonard and Ponder both! You gotta love 'em, huh?"

Then she changed tack.

"That whip you carry. Must be a good fifteen foot, huh, when you crack it out? Looks like a classic _litupa_ to me."

Johanna looked over in sleepy surprise.

"Most people call it a _sjaemboek_." she said. I hev given up correcting them. You are the first one on two worlds to name it correctly!"

"Neh." Penny said. "A _sjaemboek_ is a lot smaller than that. Four feet tops. More of a fly-swatter."

"I see you know something of whips." Johanna said, appreciatively. Penny stretched.

"Hell, I _was _Nebraska Junior Rodeo Queen." she said. "I could still down 'em, hog-tie 'em, and castrate 'em, inside of sixty seconds!"

Johanna laughed, appreciatively.

"_Ja_. This was elso necessary with our bull-calves." she said. "I was the Natal Province Under-Thirteen Whip-Skills Champion. My old _ouma_ was so proud of me!"

"Maybe we could trade skills, sweetie?"

"I would like thet. Perheps we should find an open space. Is there such near here? Where your Watchmen are unlikely to go? We could perheps invite the boys to wetch end learn! I elso believe Howard expressed en interest in learning ebout my mechete."

Penny made a dismissive noise.

"They go to RenFairs with fake swords." she said. "Can you believe that? They spend an hour waving plastic swords around, and think they know about fighting. Huh. Hey, sweetie, you show them how it's done for _real_!"

"That idea emuses me greatly." said Johanna. "Whet is a _Renfair_?"

And eventually they drifted into sleep.

Only to be woken up by...

* * *

Johanna Smith-Rhodes was showing Amy Farrah-Fowler around a place Sheldon instinctively understood to be a seat of learning. It was part-cathedral, a lofty vaulted stone hall with impressive stained-glass windows. It looked like the sort of Gothic monstrosity the Victorians had built, like the place the emigrant Welshman Mr Yale had founded on the East Coast. **(4). **It also had overtones of a fantasy hall in Minas Tirith, but looked rather _dingier_ than he might have expected of Gondor. And it evoked an old English college in Oxford or Cambridge. Something in Sheldon ached to visit this place, although a warning note screeched in his hindbrain about the possibly lamentable state of the toilets. He followed their conversation.

"And this is Ponder's University, Johanna? Very impressive." Amy said, looking around her. She seemed out of place here in layers of cardigans and sensible tweedy skirt. And the wildly incongruous high-heeled court shoes in canary-yellow leather.

"_Ja._ This is the Great Hall. Greduate end student Wizards meet in conclave here."

Sheldon frowned. _Wizards?_ Had he misheard that? No matter.

"Teaching is largely done elsewhere. I will soon show you Ponder's High Energy Megic Building."

_Magic? _Sheldon felt a surge of excitement. Did their world have _magic_? Magic that _worked_? Real magic? Was that the secret of their travelling machine?

"And your work with animals?" Amy prompted her. "We get to see that too?"

"I see no reason why not." Doctor Smith-Rhodes said. "You are my guest, end a visiting ecademic with en interest. I will authorise a researcher's pass that will ellow you eccess to ell areas of the Zoo end to my Enimel Menegement Unit. Elthough I do caution you thet there are very dangerous enimels _indeed _et the Unit. I will essign you a senior student to ect es your escort and show you the full complex. You may sit on on lessons, if thet interests you. I hev a hard time persuading my girls thet a career in science is feasible for them."

They paused. Amy turned in awed surprise as a large orang-utan knuckled its way towards them. Johanna smiled with pleasure.

"This is my friend, the Librerien." she said.

"Oh! You perform experiments on monkeys too?" Amy said, excitedly.

The watching Sheldon was aware from the frozen expression on Johanna's face that something was very, very, wrong. The orang-utan appeared to straighten up in some indefinible way, and its knuckling became one of affronted purpose as it turned its attention to Amy.

Who, oblivious, was rummaging in her shoulder-bag.

"I might have a cigarette for a nice monkey." Amy said, conversationally. "Would you like that?"

The orang-utan bore inexorably down on her...

And Sheldon sat upright in bed, his face a rictus of alarm, and he screamed.

"_No, Amy Farrah-Fowler!" _he screeched into the darkness of his room, lit only by a flickering night-light._ "Whatever you do, do not use the M-word! And what if he doesn't smoke?" _

There was a loud, Leonard-shaped, groan from the next room. Ponder Stibbons yelped. He wasn't used to Sheldon Cooper's piercingly loud night-terrors. The girls across the hallway heard it too.

"Oh, Hell, Sheldon!" Penny groaned.

"He hes very bad dreams?" Johanna asked, her heart pounding. She wasn't used to it either.

"Sweetie, if he comes over here knocking on the door wanting one of us to sing _Soft Kitty_ to him..." she paused. "Could _you_ do it? Only, in English?"**(5)**

* * *

At ten-thirty, the girls met up at Penny's for their day out. Bernadette had put her head round the door into 4a, only to hear distant sounds of snoring. She decided to leave them to it.

Penny and Johanna had showered, breakfasted, and dressed. At first, while appreciating the comfort, softness and practicality of the borrowed clothes, Johanna had fretted that they were positively indecent by Discworld standards. She was apprehensive about going out in public showing so much bared leg, arm, and cleavage. And the top was figure-hugging tight, like a second skin. The skirt indecently short, its hem reaching to somewhere a few inches above the knee, exposing bare leg. Even though Watchwomen wore leather skirts to the knee with boots or greaves below, this was not normal womenswear for Ankh-Morpork. Dressed like this on the Broadway or Filigree Street, she thought she could provoke several major policing incidents simultaneously. Sam Vimes would not have been pleased with his Special Constable. She was only mildly reassured to see Bernadette and Penny were dressed in similar casual style, which Penny had reassured her was completely normal for girls in the Greater Los Angeles area.

"We want to make sure you don't stand out, sweetie." Penny assured her. Then, being fundamentally honest, she added, "Then again, you probably will. What's your tolerance to guys hitting on you?"

"Red hair. Body to kill for. Amazing legs..." Bernadette squeaked.

Amy, in her usual shapeless layers and thick hairy tights - _or are they the hairs on her legs curling through? - _lit up with enthusiasm on seeing Johanna.

"New bezzie, you look _hot_!" she said. "We go to a bar, the drinks are on Penny's boobs and Johanna's legs!"

Johanna, who normally considered she had a body for killing _with_, accepted the praise.

"Seriously, do you work out?" Penny asked. "That's one great figure, sweetie!"

"I exercise, _ja._" she said. "My life is a very ective one. The Guild school believes pupils should be et a peak of physical fitness. It demands this of its teachers elso. I run, climb, swim, lead pupils in ell sorts of physical ectivity, tutor them in weapons use..."

The three others looked at her. Johanna had not yet disclosed _which_ Guild ran the school and what it ultimately trained its pupils _for_. Suddenly confronted with the society of refreshingly normal females – and Amy Farrah-Fowler – she had promised herself that she would lead up gradually to the whole Assassin thing. People outside the Guild – _and certainly on this planet _– tended to have an issue with that.

"End then there is my work et the Zoo, which the Guild owns. Working with enimels cen be _extremely_ physical labour." she added, hurriedly.

"Speaking of weapons." Penny said. "Sweetie, promise me you've left all the hardware here? Lots of places we're gonna visit have metal-detectors on the door. It could get embarrassing, if we have to bail you outta the joint."

"Everything is here." she assured Penny, indicating her sword-belt, equipment pouches, whip, machete, stilettos, and throwing knives. "I eppreciate the need for me to go unarmed."

Johanna had fought a deeply ingrained impulse to stash at least one weapon in the purse she'd been loaned to carry her money and ID. Going naked, as the Guild termed it, went against every Assassin instinct in her body. She had habitually carried lethal weapons ever since she was ten years old. But if sophisticated detectors could pick up even _one_ metal blade in her possession in what Penny had warned her was a lawless city, then she would be in trouble with the LAPD. Who would no doubt look at her assumed South African nationality and deport her to a country she'd never visited. At least, not directly or in this century.**(6)** And criminals here went _gonne_-armed. If there were trouble, she would have to rely on other skills to resolve things.

"To protect and to serve." she reminded herself, quoting the accepted version of Sam Vimes' City Watch motto.

Bernadette grinned.

"Yeah. That's what they _claim_, anyway. You don't give the local cops a hard time, hon."

And so the girls' shopping trip began.

When they woke up, Sheldon Cooper had insisted on making breakfast, thus ensuring a captive audience to whom he could relate his nightmare.

"So." Leonard said, thoughtfully. "Amy Farrah-Fowler, a woman who has single-handedly introduced lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver to an entire generation of lab monkeys, the woman who once made a rhesus monkey cry like a disgraced televangelist, was torn apart by an enraged orang-utan."

He paused over his scrambled eggs on waffle. They were rather good.

"Kismet."

"Well, I woke up just before the rending limb-from-limb part." Sheldon admitted. "But the look on that monkey's face, and the way it said "OOOK!". Terrifying, Leonard. Just terrifying."

"Tell me." Ponder Stibbons said, with slow careful deliberation. "Just what, exactly, did Doctor Farrah-Fowler actually _do_ to, er, provoke the anger of this particular orang-utan?"

Sheldon shrugged, off-handedly. "I believe she offered it a cigarette. Is this relevant?"

Ponder sat up straight.

"Go on." he said. A horrible suspicion was forming.

"And I understand the monkey in the dream took exception to being called a monkey. Even though I am aware the orang-utan, _Pongo Pongo_, native to Borneo and the Indonesian islands, which incidentally derives its name from the Malay words for "old man", is taxonomically classified as a Great Ape rather than a common simian monkey, _it_ doesn't need to know that and remains blissfully unaware of the fact. For it to actually _object_ to being called a monkey, however inaccurate the term, implies an anthropomorphic sentience which in reality it simply does not possess. It also implies that orang-utans are fully read up on the subtleties of the Linneaean classification of species, which is frankly preposterous."

Sheldon made an amused little half-snort, half-giggle.

"And it's not as if the species has a _library_ available to it."

Ponder winced. He took his time in replying.

"Yet you awoke screaming "Amy Farrah-Fowler, whatever you do, do **not** use the M-Word!"" he said.

Sheldon shrugged.

"Merely articulating the heightened emotional state present in the dream while the censor of the higher intellectual mind was temporarily shut down."

Ponder thought Sheldon had said that a little too quickly. He exchanged a look with Leonard, who smiled wearily.

"He _always_ talks like this." Leonard Hofstadter assured him.

Ponder shuddered and tried a different approach. He recalled long conversations with the incredible Orc, Mr Nutt.

"OK, Sheldon. Let me put this hypothesis to you."

"Go on, Professor Stibbons."

"You are, let me put it delicately, involved in a sort of romantic relationship with Doctor Farrah-Fowler." he began.

"I concede there is a meeting of minds, yes. And so far she is the most suitable female to contemplate passing on twenty-three of my chromosomes to, in order to perpetuate the brilliant Cooper mind into the next generation, lest it die out of the world without progeny. Which would be a sad loss to the scientific community."

Ponder glanced at Leonard again.

"He _always_ talks like this." Leonard Hofstadter said. "And he believes every word."

"Is it possible that your conscious mind has censored out the emotional side of the relationship to such an extent that it may _only_ express itself in dreams?" Ponder asked. "Your id, the lower mind, is shouting to be heard. While your ego and your superego were absent, presumed sleeping, your lower mind dramatised its deeper fears about Amy in the form of a nightmare where a giant ape attacked her. Holding a lighted cigarette, or indeed Amy's offer of one."

Ponder was flying now.

"And that at the point where you woke up, the ape was poised not so much to _murder_ Amy as to... well, the id, the lower mind, governs sexual impulses and needs. It often manifests in dreams as a monkey or an ape. And the fact Amy didn't get round to lighting or indeed even _finding_ the cigarette she so wanted to ignite for you..."

Leonard grinned broadly.

"Touché, Professor!" he said, applauding.

Sheldon's mouth opened and closed. Eventually he said, accusingly,

"Professor Stibbons, you have a _very_ dirty mind!"

"So do _you_, Sheldon. It was _your _dream." Leonard said. "Whoo, boy, just wait till I tell Penny!"

Ponder exhaled. He really needed to talk to HEX. Was it just conceivably true that other aspects of the Discworld were leaking through to this plane of reality, manifesting in dreams? _And I hope if Amy Farrah-Fowler does come to Unseen University, Johanna briefs her properly about the Librarian. __**(6)**_

The shopping trip was well advanced. Johanna was, to her surprise, really enjoying it. Being out in the warm Californian sun, noticing to her relief that every woman she saw seemed to dress in the same minimally casual way, being in the company of Penny, Bernadette and Amy, and getting to try on these gorgeously lovely clothes _- so many colours! - _she realised this was something she hardly ever did at home. And the wide clean streets. The amazing buildings. The brightly-lit, tempting, shops. The automobiles. At first intimidating and travelling at what seemed recklessly fast speeds. She was getting used to that now. Actually getting into Penny's car.

"How far are we going?" Johanna had asked. The city seemed incredibly vast. She judged you could fit five or six Ankh-Morporks into it.

"Only about thirty miles at most, sweetie. Burbank, Downtown, maybe a spin around Hollywood Hills."

"Thirty miles! How long will thet take?"

Johanna was used to horses and horse-drawn carriages. She heard Penny laugh.

"Oh, about twenty minutes, sweetie, when I get this baby fired up! When we go shopping, we stop for _nobody_!"

Penny was as good as her word. Johanna wondered how long it would take to learn to drive. She was enjoying the speed.

"Penny?"

"Yes, hon?"

"Thet... light... on the console. Does it mean enything? It suggests a warning of some sort. I believe it reads "check engine"."

Penny shrugged.

"I checked the engine, sweetie. It's still there under the hood. Engine duly checked. Shoes or underwear first?"

And they had, indeed, shopped. There had been a moment in the amazing big indoor market called a _mall_. A communication system of some sort was invisibly broadcasting music that was at once insistent, soothing, and irritating. Every so often a spoken announcement broke into the music, usually a Dibbler-like shilling for goods of one sort or another. Had the mechanical voice excitedly said "And that's cutting my own throat!", Johanna would have felt completely at home. She suspected "Wait! And there's more!" and "Limited stock – buy now to avoid disappointment!" were the local equivalents. At one point a public service announcement called the parents of Lacey-May Collingwood to the Mall security office, as their lost child had been found and was awaiting collection.

And then the mechanical voice smoothly said

++Calling Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes++ There are amazing offers on Ipods and cellphones at the Computer Barn++Why not buy one for yourself and one for Ponder Stibbons?++

And then it was gone, un-noticed and un-heeded by the thronging crowd.

Johanna sighed. HEX probably had a good reason for this.

"Penny? Tell me ebout Ipods end cellphones."

They stopped for coffee and cake at a pavement café. Johanna, guided by Penny and Amy, learnt how to activate a cellphone and discovered an Ipod was a mobile device for listening to music, among other things. She plugged in the headphones.

++Hello, Johanna++ said HEX. ++I suggested this device as it allows me to discreetly communicate with you, unheard by others++ If you switch on your cellphone, it will enable us to have a public conversation in the street++Nobody else will think it odd you are apparently speaking into thin air, as everyone in this city uses cellphones for communication++ It will also enable you to communicate with Ponder if you are seperated++ Please give him one each of these useful devices++Do not worry about cost, as I have set up paid accounts for you both++.

She smiled. She had no idea what technomancy powered these devices. But it would be useful. She thanked and acknowledged HEX, and addressed her coffee. It was really quite good. From somewhere behind a mounting stack of shopping bags – Johanna had been generous in thanks to her new friends for helping her, and all three had come away with at least one gift – Bernadette said

"I've really got to get some more cash. There's an ATM over there. I won't be a moment." Johanna watched her walk over to the ATM, whose purpose had been explained to her. She decided to float the idea to Moist von Lipwig when she saw him next. A small gargoyle or a team of gnomes could work from inside such a machine, auditing the state of the customer's bank account, and dispensing either money or "_Sorry – insufficent funds. Contact your bank"_ as appropriate. Technomancy, or a very fast imp painter putting the message on the glass screen in reverse, would inform the customer. She frowned at the problems associated with putting what amounted to boxes of ready banknotes on streets in Ankh-Morpork. How did people here guard against theft?

As the queue to use the machine thinned, she watched the top of Bernadette's head as she drew nearer the cash point.

_A few inches shorter and she would class as a dwarf, _Johanna thought. _But a startlingly pretty one._

And then she saw the people who were also watching the ATM. Who were drawing nearer to Bernadette, who was reaching for the little plastic rectangle that somehow activated the machine and spoke to its machine intelligence. They did not look good. She counted three of them: two closing on Bernadette and a third, a confederate, hanging back to watch for trouble. _Standard Thieves' Guild practice. _Johanna stood up.

"Hon?" Penny said.

"Bernadette is in trouble." Johanna said. "Please cover my beck."

Then she crossed the street to the ATM, in time to watch one of the two distracting Bernadette Wolowitz and causing her to turn her head – just as a bundle of dollars emerged from the machine. The other thief quickly grabbed the notes.

"Hey!" Bernadette squeaked, as the two began running. Right into a slightly built redhead who barred their way.

"What the fuck!" one swore, and reached into his inside pocket. Johanna stepped to block the second man who tried to sidestep her.

"Out of the freakin' WAY, lady!" he growled. Johanna stepped forward and eyeballed him.

"You will give my friend back the money you stole from her." she said.

"There was a pause."

"Thet was not a request."

"And you're gonna make me, are you?" said the large, Paraquatian, looking man with his hand inside his jacket, as if reaching for a knife.

His eyes crossed with surprise as a fast kick bowled him over. A nasty looking knife dropped from his hand as he rolled on the pavement in a private world of pain.

"Yes. I am." Johanna said. She then dropped the other with several well-placed punches and reached down to retrieve Bernadette's money. She was aware of a commotion behind her. She did not look round.

As a third body hit the ground with a large thud, she heard

"I'm from Nebraska, sweetie. We're simple Midwest folk with a zero-tolerance policy to thieves and low-lives. A hundred years ago we'd have swung you off a tree. But right now you're lookin' at a Nebraska Rodeo Queen. That means I've dropped you. I've hogtied you. Wanna find out what the _third_ thing is?"

She looked round, unhurriedly, to where Penny was standing, the heel of her right foot hovering over a place guaranteed to ensure compliance from the prone guy.

"Folks round here are soft on crime. They allow you three strikes. In Nebraska, buddy, you don't even get _one_. Johanna, sweetie, wanna pass me that knife? Sure looks blunt!"

Johanna kicked it over, but Penny made no attempt to pick it up. In the background a siren wailed. The sort of bystanders who appreciate street theatre began applauding. Johanna sighed. It was the same in Ankh-Morpork. She passed Bernadette her retrieved money. Two policemen got out of a squad car. They were very purposeful looking policemen whose day was now full of incident and work.

Officer Krupke and Officer Dibble of the Los Angeles Police Department, two guys who had cause to be sensitive about their names, looked about them. Three cuffed perps, all with previous, all graduates of a Latino gang from East L.A., sat, docile, on the pavement, awaiting a lock-up wagon. The one who had said "Get these freakin' women off me, will ya, they're maniacs!" had been exhorted to be silent in no uncertain terms.

Officer Dibble handed back Johanna's passport and paperwork.

"I'm sure sorry you had a bad experience in our city, Doctor Smith-Rhodes." he said. "But I hear its kinda bad in South Africa, right? Guess you learnt to look after yourself in... " he stumbled over the name. "Witwatersrand. And you were in the South African Defence Forces, too."

This was partly true. Johanna had done National Service in a sort of southern African army.

"Ja", she said. "We were taught a little unarmed combat. Since then, I hev worked es a security consultant."

Which was also true. It was a recognised role of the Guild of Assassins, who sometimes had to be contracted to bring about the exact opposite.

"whoo boy." said Officer Krupke. "Just not you guys' _day,_ is it?"

"That one, the cowpoke girl, threatened to cut my godamn balls off!" another would-be mugger shouted, indignant. Penny smiled sweetly at him.

"Hey, late nights bartending at the Cheesecake Factory..." she said.

Officer Dibble scowled at him.

"You tried to mug a Nebraska Rodeo Queen." he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. "What the freakin' hell did you _expect_? Out there, they rope 'em, they drop 'em, and what comes next is sure unfortunate for the steer!"

The mugger tried to remonstrate again.

"Shaddup!" said Dibble. "And listen. I ain't gonna say this more than once..."

He read them their Miranda rights, informing them they were under arrest for grand larceny, theft, and assault.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you'll all need to come to the precinct and give statements." Krupke said. "none of you ladies are under arrest."

"I understand." Johanna said, putting on a co-operative face. "Et home, I am myself a part-time police officer. I em sorry to hev given you the extra paperwork. I know whet a trial it is. Especially if you wish for a quiet patrol, or you are near the end of a shift end wish only to go home."

She thought of the City Watch and the officers she knew. How literate people like herself, Angua and Sally were often badgered to help less able officer with their paperwork. She knew something about coppers, and knew what buttons to press.

"You're a _cop_?" Dibble said. "Ma'am, pleased to meet you!"

He extended a hand. Penny relaxed. It was going to be OK. If Amy could help load the car, they could get this out of the way at the station house, maybe Amy could get all the loot home? Or she'd ring Leonard to get him to come out in his car.

She looked at Johanna. That girl was sure livening things up... boy this was gonna be fun!

* * *

**(1) **It's like this. On Roundworld, the smith, technocrat, and generally good-with-his-hands, God was Vulcan. Hence early rubberized fabrics were called _Vulcanised_. (Vulcan was also god of volcanoes and emissions from the bowels of the Earth, popularly supposed to be effluvium from his subterranean workshop. Vulcanised rubber also smells of sulphur, cat pee, and stale farts, as Constable Visit discovered during the Wally Sonk murder investigation. **(2)**) On the Discworld, the parellel deity is Dennis, Janitor and Handyman of the Gods.

**(2**) See Terry Pratchett's _**Thud!**_, in which rubber and latex play a key role.

**(3)** It's like this. My _other _old uni is an establishment that now variously calls itself the University of Wales, Wrexham, or Prifysgol Owain Glyndwr. It really wanted to call itself Yale University, Wrexham, because the original founding institution was legitimately called Yale College after the local man who founded it, over a hundred years before. But they never copyrighted the name. Owing to this oversight, the lesser upstart college in New England, founded by the same Mr Yale who emigrated to the USA, sucessfully sued for wrongful use of the name and trading under false pretences. It was agreed in court that the Welsh-language _Coleg Ial_ was sufficiently vague, but anywhere outside of New England that wanted to call itself Yale University could forget it, pronto...

**(4)** Written for Space Anjl, who I gather from recent correspondence is not Amy Farrah-Fowler's greatest fan. You're welcome.

**(5)** Owing to _there-but-not-there_ suits, HEX had been able to project Discworld researchers into the Roundworld in a virtually real kind of way, unseen, in normal circumstances, by local observers. Johanna had taken advantage of this to go on virtual safaris in the Serengeti, South America, and the Borneo jungles, so as to get _really_ close to the wildlife. But these were generally around 1400, before colonialization set in.

**(6**) Although the Unseen University Librarian is a gentle soul who has never yet been known to physically chastise a woman for inadvertently using the M-word. As seen with Agnes Nitt, he offers a gentle warning first. A woman who has slain lesser monkeys in the pursuit of scientific experimentation might be the first, though.


	5. The Fabricati Diem, pvnc ultimatum

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_**Chapter five: bailed outta the joint. **_

_In which life continues following a little disagreement in the street, in which Johanna questioned the perceived right of three gang-bangers from East L.A. to help themselves to Bernadette's money. In keeping with the general cut-and-thrust of academic debate, Doctor Smith-Rhodes, ably assisted by Penny from Nebraska, was able to marshal some rather cogent and decisive premises in applied moral philosophy which enabled her to triumph. This was quickly followed by a debate concerning jurisprudence and application of admissible legal instruments with two visiting Fellows from the Los Angeles Police Department._

Amy Farrah-Fowler returned alone to the apartment block on los Robles, feeling bucked up and enervated by what she had witnessed. Being mugged and robbed was an environmental hazard of living in Greater Los Angeles. Even so, she had been shocked to see it almost happen to a close friend like Bernadette. And then she had been cheering and clapping, along with other bystanders, as her new bezzie BF, the red-haired girl who _must_ be from South Africa, (as the notion that she was an alien who had arrived here from a different planet that, had a South Africa-like country, was not only impossible but also patently impossible), hacked down two guys, both larger and stronger than she appeared to be, in a matter of seconds. Penny had tripped and kicked the third where it hurt, but hey, that was Penny. While the two cops were cuffing the perps and waiting for a catch-wagon, Amy had stood guard on the stack of purchases while Penny brought the car round – Johanna had somehow persuaded the cops to let Penny leave the scene and get the car. Amy had promised to give a witness statement later, but obviously, we can't just leave our shopping lying around on the pavement, officer...

And here she was knocking at the door of 4a.

"Yes?" said Sheldon Cooper.

"Penny, Bernadette and Johanna have been unavoidably detained at the police precinct." Amy said, in her flat, disinterested monotone. "I have, however, been able to retrieve the shopping. I require assistance to bring it upstairs to Penny's apartment."

"Oh, shit." Ponder Stibbons said,wearily. "Who's she happened to _this_ time?"

Howard and Raj looked at him.

"Does your lady happen to people often, Ponder?" Howard asked.

"You'd be surprised..."

"Howard, there was an attempt to rob Bernadette. She is currently exhibiting the clinical symptoms of mild trauma, such as dizziness and vertigo typical of enhanced noradreniline compounds in the cortical bloodstream, greatly enhanced heart rate, shivering, and cold sweats, but is otherwise unharmed. Johanna intervened. She was _awesome_!"

Ponder didn't look surprised.

"Thieves' Guild?" he asked.

"If that is the same as an L.A. Street gang, then yes." Amy said. "Three of them."

"Ah. Johanna outnumbered your attackers one-to-three." Ponder said. He sounded very unsurprised. "Were any... er... _inhumed?_ Or seriously hurt?"

"Sadly, they all retained consciousness." Amy said. "Penny describing how an Okie girl goes about neutering male calves who are superfluous to the future breeding requirements of the Nebraskan dairy-farming community greatly helped in enforcing compliance. And then the police arrived."

Everyone looked at Leonard. He sighed.

"Hey, a girl's got to have a hobby!" he said. Penny and Amy had once discussed castration as a means of taking surplus males out of the gene-pool and evening out undesirable little behavioural quirks in the surplus population. Amy's un-necessarily detailed clinical description, of how a minor surgical procedure performed at one end of a monkey could induce beneficial and perceptible neurochemical changes at the other, was still something that haunted his dreams. At least they'd been looking at _Howard_ while they compared monkeys to steers...

Then his cellphone rang. It was Penny.

"Ah-huh." he mumbled, as she explained the situation. "Everyone OK? Good. I'll be right over."

"Do you need to pay bail?" Sheldon asked. "I have money if you require it. Raj, you said Priya might be back in town soon? Perhaps you could approach your legally lethal sister to represent Penny in court?"

"No _way_, Sheldon!" Leonard said, heatedly, as he went to the door. "Besides, they're not the ones under arrest!"

_Asking Priya to get Penny out of a jam? _he thought. _Is Sheldon insane? I want to keep my testicles, thank you. And not floating in formaldehyde in a sample jar as a memento of happier times._

"You surprise me." Sheldon said, mildly.

"Now can we get onto _important_ business?" Amy inquired. "Those shopping bags won't carry themselves upstairs!"

"You may have the services of Raj and Howard." Sheldon said, grandly.

"What about _you_, Sheldon?" Raj said, pointedly.

"Well, for one, the frilly and lacy feminine underpinnings which have been bought for use by Doctor Smith-Rhodes do not interest me in the slightest. Nor do shoes, skirts, tops, spaghetti-strapped vests, or any other female garment appropriate for wear in California by a visitor from an alien world with a different default climate, which I understand from conversation with Professor Stibbons is permanently set to "rainy and cold". I would also suspect that Penny and Bernadette have not abstained from reckless and spendthrift expenditure of their own on ditto items of garb. Second and more pertinent, as the alpha male and greatest intelligence in this group, I am excused manual labour. Off you go, Raj and Howard."

"I'll help." said Ponder. He was intrigued by the idea Johanna was going to blend into this world by wearing its clothes. _Well,_ he thought, _the Assassins' Concordat stresses the importance of blending in with your surroundings when on an undercover mission..._ It interested Ponder in more than the slightest.

"Just drop the bags in Penny's apartment." Amy said. "I've got the key. Howard! No peeping!"

* * *

"Let's get this straight, ma'am." the interviewing officer said to Penny. "The perp complains that you threatened to castrate him if he so much as breathed where you could see it. We gotta cover all angles here, you understand. Any reasonable person would accept you were acting out of legitimate self-defence. But we're not talking normal and reasonable people here, we're talking a randomly selected Los Angeles jury. Could be he might bring a counter-charge of excessive violence."

Penny smiled sweetly at the cop. He blinked.

"Officer, it takes a sharp knife or a veterinarian tool to cut a steer." she said. "I know in the old days, an Okie woman might use her teeth to do the job."

The officer winced. Drop-dead gorgeous blondes talking about castration kind of sent out mixed signals. He briefly wondered why he'd ever joined the force.

"But hey, I just had dental work done. That cost me big dollar! And my grandmomma told me it left a bad taste in your mouth if you didn't spit quickly enough..."

"Ain't that sorta _painful_?" he asked, taking a deep breath.

Penny considered this.

"Well, only if you didn't hogtie the back legs securely enough, and it got a chance to kick you."

The officer closed the interview file, deliberately.

"I consider I have everything I need." he said. "Ma'am, you're free to go."

"Thank you, officer!"

* * *

Johanna handed over the South African passport and introductory letters HEX had somehow obtained for her. The policewoman looked at them and read the back page, which was trilingual in English, Afrikaans and an African language transcribed into Roman text.

"Doctor Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes. Hair, red. Eyes, green. Ethnicity White Afrikaaner. First language Afrikaans. Religion, Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. Profession: zoologist, higher education teacher. Mother's maiden name is van der Graaf. You carry letters of introduction from Witwatersrand University to Caltech, where you are hoping to obtain a research fellowship. Your entry visa to the USA is made out for "business" and entitles you to work here as an academic and teacher, provided you have a legitimate professional sponsor."

HEX had done his background work well, even hacking into South African Airlines' passenger lists to show she had arrived by air and had been processed by Immigration at Los Angeles International Airport.

The policewoman sighed.

"Ma'am, there are some _weird_ people there! They say it's where UCLA sends the ones who are too bat-dung strange nucking futjob even for Berkeley. One professor flipped completely and went to work naked. As that kinda thing's normal for Caltech, it took weeks before anyone even noticed."

She grimaced.

"And we once dealt with this wacko professor who insisted we follow through a criminal investigation for things that got stolen online in this fantasy computer game he was playing, can you believe that?" (1)

Johanna wondered for a moment if she meant Sheldon Cooper.

"Fortunately he wasn't the sort of doctor with access to drugs." the policewoman said, conversationally. "Another time the same mad professor called us because there was a bird sitting on his windowledge looking at him funny. Can you believe that? We just told him to close the freaking curtains!"

Johanna smiled. She liked this policewoman. It helped that because of Sam Vimes enlisting her as a Special, she'd got to know Watchmen and suspected certain police types were universal. She could talk cop with cops. It helped a lot.

"Current domicile, Apartment 4c, 2311 North Los Robles, Pasadena. That checks out. Your friend vouched for you. We have to do this with non-citizens, you understand. Just to check you're not an illegal alien."

Johanna smiled inwardly. It was nice to be a legal alien in the USA.

The officer frowned. "Hey, I recall that mad professor from Caltech lives in the same block. We got a file this thick on him! Avoid him, hon. Long thin guy with funny starey eyes. Nutjob, but harmless. We think."

"Ah. I believe I hev met him. He hes a friend who is better adjusted end who strives to interpret the world for him."

The policewoman smiled.

"We sure admire you for what you did, hon. You took out three bad guys with a lot of previous. They're in the cage now and probably in the pen after court. If we need you to testify in court, you're available at this address?"

"Certainly."

The two shook hands.

"One last thing. The Captain wants to see you. Tough cookies who kick the crap out of our less well-adjusted citizens interest him. I guess he'll want to shake your hand too. Follow me?"

Johanna followed. She adjusted her mental compass to "reporting to Sam Vimes." News travels fast in a police station, always a hive of fast-moving gossip. Where policemen weren't semi-discreetly admiring her figure, comments like

"_Hey, doc? Good job!" _and_ "you sure did a number on those crims, ma'am!" _and_ "Do all the policewomen in your country look like you?"_

and _"South African consulate's at 6300 Wilshire, if you wanna emigrate!" _followed her.

* * *

Penny and Bernadette waited in the hall of the police precinct. Penny kept a close eye on her friend.

"Won't be long, sweetie." she said. "I rang the guys. Somebody's coming out to collect us."

She was worried. The waiting room of a police station is never a good place to wait. The usual complement of arrested hookers, druggies, their friends, minor crims caught out in chicanery, re-arrested bail-jumpers, the bounty hunters who'd brought them in, and a smattering of normal more-or-less innocent citizens, along with hard-eyed cops keeping watch on the zoo, was getting to her too. Bernie had just experienced a hit-and-run mugging and now had leisure time to think about it.

"We'll just wait for Johanna, then we're outta here. Whoever comes, Leonard or Howard, he'll find us outside."

"They haven't arrested her, have they?"

"Hell, no! The way those cops were going on, they were all set to give her a medal or something. And I tell you, I'm sure glad she was fighting on our team. I bet when the guys hear about it, they are gonna want to take her out paintballing against the dirt people!"

Bernie giggled. Sheldon's antipathy to geologists and archaeologists was well known. Penny felt glad she was taking her friend's mind off things.

"Hey, look! Here they are! Leonard, sweetie!"

She stood up and leapt up and down to draw attention, a physical fact that drew wolf-whistles and cheers.

* * *

Captain Trunk was a dapper Afro-American guy in his forties. He had the right to wear civilian clothes to work. A level-headed and pragmatic cop, as captain his role was as much administration and management as active policing. He sympathised with Officers Dibble and Krupke, as his police career had begun at much the same time that godamm TV show had started. Trunk felt obliquely that this hadn't been _fair._ He'd wanted to be a cop all his life. And once he got there, his police career had been blighted with whispered- in- the- locker- room comments like _Trust me, I know what I'm doing!" _On promotion to Sergeant, Trunk had begun affably remarking that if his name meant he ever had to really _shout _at people, he was sure he could find somebody's face to shout in, you hear me, Officer?

Philosophically, while he felt it was typical of the world that it had never been able to assign him a Sergeant Dori Doreau whilst landing dozens of would-be Hammers on him, at least he could take comfort in Detective Columbo of the Murder Squad getting it _worse_. And hell, the LAPD now had an Officer McLeod in its mounted section. He suspected all this proved God had a sense of humor.

"Doctor Smith-Rhodes for you, Captain."

Trunk smiled.

"Show her in, miss Courtney."

Trunk smiled into the girlish freckled face of the young woman who walked in.

_Hell, she's a looker. And I hear she's a volunteer part-time cop at home._

Her accent was South African. Trunk was old enough to have mixed feelings about white folks who spoke with that accent. But hey, their Consulate was on his police patch and the staff there were 80% black African these days. The South Africans had cleaned up their act a bit in the last few years. There had to be some decent white folk from that country. Some nice white South Africans. And he was prepared to give a by to glorious redheads with a figure like that. _Well, I never met a nice South African. as I'm black American, that was not too surprising. But this one may be the first._

"Ceptain." she said, taking the offered hand with no hesitation.

"Ma'am." he said. "I have to say, on behalf of the Los Angeles Police Department, you displayed real bravery and impressive self-defence skills this afternoon. It's a real honour to meet you."

"Thenk you, sir." she said, reflecting that she'd made her face known, and in a good way, with an entire police force. Not bad for her first day on Roundworld.

"The officers who took the call report that you're a cop? Or at least, a part-time volunteer?"

"Thet is so." she said. And wondered what she could say about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch that wouldn't sound... strange. She decided to focus on the universal cop stuff and leave out the specifics. It would be safest.

"My primary job is es a zoologist end ecademic. When an ill-advised person in the city where I live very unwisely imported large dangerous enimels, end showed he hed no idea es to how to menage them, they escaped. The local police force esked for my essistence in rounding up end recepturing them. We hed, for en efternoon end evening, something of en urban safari." **(2)**

Johanna related the story, in an edited form.

"Et the end of the mission, the local police commender congretulated me end esked if I would like to become a special constable. Of course, I eccepted. My full-time work means I cennot be a full-time officer, but I seek to muster with the city watch at least once a month, perheps to do a foot patrol end to learn the art of policing. It is, to me, velueble end interesting work."

Trunk nodded.

"I see you're seeking work in Pasadena, at Caltech." he said. "Boy, is that one nut-house. There's a guy there, lives in the world of numbers and letters. Wherever that is, it sure as heck ain't this one! gotta file on him, this thick. And another guy, got taken on by NASA to work on the space program. While it was never proven, they suspect he was the one who wrecked a few million bucks worth of high technology we sent to Mars - just to show off to this girl. FBI had us help investigate. And this other guy working for the Department of Defense was seeing a North Korean spy. Guy was a typical Poindexter. Didn't even notice. Boy, does Caltech get 'em!"

Trunk went on at some length, Johanna listening and storing up interesting stories. She kept a carefully straight face.

"Ma'am, if you're too sane for Caltech, and it looks as if you are, and you want to try policing full time, I'd be pleased to write you a reference." he said. "I can never get enough good officers."

"Thenk you, but I am not an American citizen." she said. "Will thet metter?"

"Ma'am, I got officers here of twenty different nationalities. We take good cops from _anywhere_, and it gets you an automatic Green Card to work in this country.**(3)** It's a fast track to becoming a citizen. Contact me if you're interested!"

Trunk leaned back. "Now all I need from you is the name and business address of your police commander. I want to write him a personal letter of thanks and commendations about what you did today. A real pleasure and a privilege!"

Johanna kept a perfectly straight face. _Oh, kak. That's Sam Vimes. And if Captain Trunk can get a letter from here to Ankh-Morpork I'd be very surprised. How do I get out of this one?_

A bell started to ring, nearby but muffled.

"Do you want to take that call, Doctor?" Trunk said. "I guess people know you've been in a fight and they're worried about you."

_Of course. The cellphone._

She reached into her bag, glad of the distraction, and activated the phone. The screen glowed blue. A text message scrolled across it.

++Give him Sir Samuel's name and invent an address on Roundworld++ I will intercept the letter and see it reaches Sir Samuel++

Johanna sighed with relief and clumsily texted back. It had a lot in common with clacksing, only with an aggravatingly smaller keyboard.

_CNNT SPK. MSG RCVD THNK U HX._

She closed the call.

"Ja." she said. "Thank you. The responsible officer is Commender Semuel Vimes."

She added a plausible sounding address in Pietermauritzberg, Natal, KZN, knowing she could trust HEX to get it before it was delivered to an utterly confused recipient with no idea what was going on. But the sting in the tail was that HEX proposed to redirect it to Sam Vimes... what if he tried to write back?

She warmly thanked Captain Trunk for his time and his courtesy, and hinted that her friends would be waiting downstairs. He took the hint, and escorted her to the door, giving her a business card and saying "call me. We need born cops."

_Ah well. _she thought._ The letter will in all probability be lost in Mr Vimes' in-tray for months. Or Frederick Colon will use it for a firelighter. I'll deal with this when it happens._

* * *

Leonard Hofstadter had caught up with Ponder in the entry-well of 2311.

"The, er, elevator, doesn't work?" Ponder asked, politely.

"Long story, Ponder. Hey, to save you running Amy's bags up three flights of stairs, you'd better come with me? We'll find out what happened. You're not worried for Johanna?"

Ponder had learnt not to worry too much over her work assignments. He did spare a little compassion for anyone she happened to, though.

"She looks after herself. Believe me. But it'd be best if I joined you. Where are we going?"

"LAPD Wilshire precinct. West Venice. Maybe a three-quarter hour ride cross town. The girls are there."

He went. At least he'd see a little of this strange new city on the way.

* * *

Leonard's attention was distracted by Bernadette leaping up and wrapping her arms around him. She was shaking a little. Penny somehow managed to wrap herself around both of them at once. Ponder, temporarily ignored, sighed and looked round his new environment. It was seedy and dispiriting, like the waiting area of Pseudopolis Yard on a Friday or Saturday night, and for much the same reasons with much the same sort of people. Ponder had often had to go to the Yard to bail out wizards pulled in by the Watch, for the usual depressing sorts of reasons. He sighed again. Low-status Seamstresses were instantly recognisable whatever planet you were on. That big guy over there, lolling on his chair, put him in mind of a troll on Class-S drugs. And Watchmen were instantly recognisable, anywhere.

"We gotta wait for Johanna." Penny said. "Hope she won't be long."

The four of them set about waiting. Penny filled them in on events.

"They took the three of us off to different desks." she said. "Probably deliberate, they want to be sure our statements match up. But hell, we're not in trouble."

"Did your cop try to hit on you?" Leonard asked, with seeming casualness. He knew any man who wasn't gay, or dead, or Sheldon Cooper, tried to hit on Penny. It was a fact of life.

"Sweetie! Of course he did! You don't think I didn't take advantage of that?" she asked.

Leonard grinned.

"So you're not in trouble, then."

"Uh-huh. Squicked him out. He sure terminated the interview when I explained about rodeo!"

It was Penny who spotted Johanna first, as she stepped down a flight of stairs Something about her drew looks. It might have been the red hair, or the way she carried herself in local clothes. At the foot of the stairs, a huge guy with blonde hair, long blonde beard, and muscled like an old-time barbarian hero, stopped her. The woman with him, also blonde, had better muscles than most men.

Johanna listened courteously to whatever proposition was being made, accepted a business card, shook hands with both, and walked on, recognising her friends.

"Pimp?" Leonard asked.

"Sweetie, they're _worse_! Bounty hunters." **(4)**

Ponder belatedly recognised her. The tight figure-hugging top with almost invisible shoulder straps. The eye-bogglingly short skirt. The delicate shoes that seemed in some indefinable way to draw attention to the shape of her legs... and what legs... her red hair, loose and tied back in a casual pony-tail... and the way the tight top caused parts of her to jiggle as she walked...

Leonard placed a friendly hand on Ponder's shoulder.

"You _never_ get over it. Trust me. And man, isn't it _good_..."

Johanna hugged and kissed Ponder.

"Nggggh..." he said, lost for words.

"Hev you missed me?" she said, fondly. Leonard and Penny grinned at each other. An increasingly incredulous male gaze was focusing on Ponder Stibbons, who was dressed in nondescript baggy jeans and a hoodie borrowed from Leonard. A little of it was rubbing off on Leonard, as Penny hugged him.

_No, you never get over it. And it doesn't get any better than this..."_

Penny kissed Leonard.

_Well, it does get better. _

"Come on, sweetie. Let's get outta here!" Penny declared. And so the five of them left.

* * *

**(1) **Doctor Sheldon Cooper.

**(2) **See my story_ **Nature Studies,** _in which Ankh-Morpork becomes a slightly more dangerous place to reside than usual.

**(3) **Really true. Joseph Wambaugh's thinly-veiled slice of police life, _**The Choirboys**_, references a Japanese immigrant who was paired up with a German immigrant as LAPD beat cops. Both were non-citizens with Green Cards looking to become naturalised American citizens. They were less than amused when other cops nicknamed them _The Axis Partners. **The Choirboys, **_incidentally, was a novel that helped inspire Terry Pratchett to write about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.

**(4) **Johanna had indeed been propositioned. The hulking man and his wife worked as bounty-hunters, and traded in collecting people running from the law. They'd just dropped off a perp, and from a police contact had heard the talk of the day was this classy gal from South Africa who'd single-handedly beaten some remorse into three Crips from East L.A. So "Excuse me, ma'am. Would you like a job?" The reasoning being that nobody would believe a gal who looked like that could be so completely commendably badass in a fight... any low-life not taking her seriously would be giving her the element of surprise. She had taken The Canine's card, and said she would think about it. Not telling him that bounty-hunting was an acceptable contract for an Assassin on the Discworld.

_**Slight rewrite - to eliminate errors and typos. Two issues:**_

_**Apologies.**_At a casual glance, I assumed Pasadena was a satellite city of Greater Los Angeles and was covered in the LAPD police jurisdiction. Whoops... I have since discovered that the City of Roses is a seperate political identity that just happens to border onto Greater Los Angeles and has its own police department... so the LAPD would have heard about the big thick file on Sheldon Cooper with the note on the front that says "if it isn't murder, just ring his mom in Texas and let her chew him out", but be quietly releived that it's Pasadena that holds it and has to deal with him.

_**The whole Okie thing:**_several readers have messaged me with congratulations and favourable feedback as to how a Brit can write Americans well. Thank you. But have mentioned that the diminutive "Okie" only applies to people from Oklahoma - Penny is from Nebraska and is more of a Cornhusker. (in some circumstances). I take this correction, but note that there is one episode of TBBT where Penny refers to herself as an Okie. so I assumed the show's writers had done the research and it was therefore OK. Also, Wikipedia and several online dictionaries of colloquialisms note the distinctions are blurred: with the westward rush of internal migrants from the mid-west to California in the dustbowl years of the 1920's, EVERY mid-westerner became an Okie in Californian eyes, regardless of state. Perhaps Penny got so tired of correcting natives calling her an Okie that she just ran with it?


	6. The Cheesecake Neologism

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_**Chapter six: practical applications for a Time Machine. And the cheesecake factory franchise.**_

_And back to the apartment. A pleasant evening ensues._

Sheldon Cooper had been talking about his nightmare of the previous night to anyone who wanted to listen, and also to anyone who didn't. Johanna sat bolt upright, surprised.

_I wish to take this Amy to the Discworld, and to introduce her to some people. My friend Matron Igorina, for one. They will get on. And also, for my own amusement, to the main Post Office building. I must ensure she does not encounter the Librarian before she is firmly and emphatically warned. There is a duty of care and protection to these people._

Amy smiled, surprised and warmed.

"Sheldon? You expressed real apprehension and concern for my fate? I am touched!"

Sheldon Cooper frowned. "In the dream I was standing nearby. I do not recollect what clothing items I was wearing. I _do_ know, however, how hard it is to get bloodstains and bodily matter out of fabrics. And I don't know how many pathogens and contaminants circulate in your body from close contact with simian offal and entrails. The risk factor was far too great."

Amy frowned, deflated.

Penny had left for a shift at the Cheesecake Factory. This left the other six, gathered in the boys' living room.

"Anyhoo." Sheldon said, affectedly. "While you were out bailing people out of police custody. Professor Stibbons, if you propose to remain on this world for any significant length of time, you will be very welcome to stay as a guest in this apartment, should you so wish. However, I must insist you sign the Housemate Agreement as a temporary resident. I have duly printed off a copy for you to initial at all pertinent points and to formally sign at the end. Doctor Smith-Rhodes is exempt, as my understanding is that she is living across the hallway at Penny's, and is therefore outside my jurisdiction."

He sounded regretful at this. Raj sniggered.

"Yes, Sheldon. Every time you've tried to get her to agree to a Floormates Agreement that means everyone on the whole floor is subject to the same universal binding contract, Penny has told you exactly where to roll it up and stick it!"

"Well, it's untidy and highly unsatisfactory that a neighbouring flat, which can be argued to have an anarchistic disregard of those protocols which regulate the everyday details of mutually beneficial shared living, is allowed to ignore all daily schedules and routines and to make it up as it goes along! By any practical application of Bohr's Law and the Copenhagen Interpretation, which states that any two particles once brought into contact carry on influencing and interacting with each other, it is only right and correct that Penny should sign a binding Floormates Agreement!"

"Today, 2311 North Los Robles. Tomorrow, the world..." murmured Howard.

Without looking up, Ponder said "That sounds reasonable. While we're here we _should_ contribute to shared expenses, up to and including rent. This agreement says what those are?"

Sheldon flourished a sheaf of A4 paper the thickness of a small telephone directory.

"I'm so glad you see it this way, Professor Stibbons!"

Ponder speed-read through it without commentating. He looked at several sections and smiled to himself. One in particular struck him as funny.

"Leonard, did you have to sign this too?" he asked.

Leonard Hofstadter nodded, grimly.

"I'll sign on conditions, Sheldon." Ponder said. "I'd like to take this with me for a f... an _acquaintance_... on the Disc to look at. He finds things like this to be very interesting. If he has a hobby, he collects contracts like this. For his own amusement."

"Do you mean Mr Slant?" Johanna asked. Ponder nodded.

"The Lawyers' Guild Library has a room full of professionally interesting contracts." Ponder explained. "For instruction and guidance of young trainee lawyers. They'd love this one!"

"Your lawyer friend isn't going to _challenge_ this, is he?" Sheldon said, suspiciously. "I think you'll find, after my unfortunate experience with _Mizz_ Priya Kooprathali performing a legal dissection of the original, I have studied enough law to extensively rewrite a version with less loopholes."

"I don't think he's able to legally practice on this world." Ponder said. He left out the logic that if a Zombie is a creature retaining sentient life after death owing to the unique magical properties of the Discworld, sending one to a different planet where no magic worked would induce a long-delayed death the moment they arrived. Whether other Discworld sentient species would thrive on the monosentiently human Roundworld had been a debated theoretical question. After some debate, they'd asked for a Troll volunteer willing to take the risk of going into the Project. He'd arrived under a bridge in Norway in 995 AD, and had flourished in a country where everyone knew trolls existed. They just wished it was under _somebody else's_ bridge. HEX had pulled back the volunteer troll, who had demanded

"Why you do dat? I was makin' big dollar dere on bridge tolls!"

The troll had taken some calming, HEX bringing across the heavy chest containing his booty – enough silver, gold and gems to set him up for life in the city. HEX had also taken the precaution of manipulating things so a flock of goats was driven over the bridge: this neatly explained the disappearance of its guardian troll into the mists of myth, legend, and fairy tale.

"Just sign here, Professor Stibbons". Sheldon repeated, impatiently.

"Don't do it!" Leonard pleaded. "Seriously, don't!"

Ponder smiled. And then signed. Sheldon took back the Housemate Agreement with satisfaction. Leonard did the facepalm thing.

"And, as I'm assuming you will be engaging in coitus with Doctor Smith-Rhodes during your stay here, you will fully honour Clause Six sub-section twenty-three, which states that the secondary signatory, ie, _you,_ will formally advise the primary signatory, ie, _me,_ in writing and preferably by email, no later than twenty-four hours in advance."

Johanna's eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. She looked at Sheldon. It was not a friendly look.

"Errr... I know what you're thinking, but please don't damage him." Bernadette said, quickly.

"Why the _Hell_ did you sign that?" Leonard asked, heatedly. Ponder grinned the grin of a man who has it all worked out. Howard Wolowitz looked over, his eyes displaying appreciation of a long-delayed punch-line.

He glanced towards the time machine and raised an eyebrow. Ponder nodded, smugly. Very smugly. Leonard boggled.

"Check your email inbox, Doctor Cooper." Ponder invited him. "I think you'll find everything's in order and the paperwork is completed according to the terms of the Agreement."

"Hmmf." Sheldon said. But he went to check his email anyway.

His eyes narrowed as he picked up a mail in his inbox.

"pstibbons,© UU. edu,.dw" he read. Dated for six yesterday morning..." Sheldon blinked. "Advising me in accordance with Section 6 sub-section 23 of the Housemate Agreement that should she in the normal course of events be amenable, and it is clearly understood that the decision to proceed is in her sole gift, there _may_ be an act closely defined under the terms of article 23:6 involving Professor Ponder Stibbons of the UEA institution**(1)**, and Doctor Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes, of the AS Guild Academy. Mail copied to JSR_2© .dw as an F.Y.I. for her advice."**(2)**

Sheldon took a deep breath and glared at Ponder.

"That... all appears to be in accord, Doctor."

Raj cheered and Howard offered him a handshake.

Sheldon looked sternly at Ponder, who looked back, innocently.

"This only leaves the question of your bathroom schedule, Professor Stibbons. I can allocate you 9:00 – 9:30 am each day for all matters of ablutions and bodily evacuations."

"I believe I can accommodate that, yes." Ponder agreed, placidly.

Sheldon smiled. "I appreciate your attention to detail, Professor. The agreement is more flexible on matters of laundry. You may use, or negotiate to use, the shared laundry room in this apartment block at all times and dates, other than Saturday evening."

"That's when Sheldon uses it for his clothes." Howard explained to Ponder, who nodded.

There was a silence. Then Leonard asked

"So what do we do tonight, then?" Sheldon looked at him, slightly outraged.

"I am piqued that you should ask, Doctor Hofstadter!" he said, indignantly.

"Everyone should be aware that Friday evening is vintage game evening, accompanied by Chinese food from the Golden Dragon!"

"Well, normally, yes." Leonard said. "But last night was Anything-Goes Thursday and we had Chinese then. And after Ponder and Johanna sorta... arrived... we played games. And since you've just raised the Room-mate Agreement and made Ponder sign it, I wanna invoke section forty-eight subclause one."

Sheldon looked it up.

"Emergency Provisions. In the event of our being contacted by advanced alien intelligences from another planet, the normal nightly schedule may be suspended while we establish contact and rapport with our guests. Clause One is a hypothetical suggestion we allow our guests to choose the cuisine, and we answer their reasonable questions about Planet Earth, whilst learning more of their homeworld and what it can teach us."

Sheldon appeared to be in a profound inner struggle with himself. His face twitched in a nervous tic. Howard leant forward.

"Bet he never dreamed he'd ever be called on _that_ one!" he said to Raj. Raj smiled. He was enjoying this.

"Rajesh, may I ask? There are a people very much like you on our world. They provide a foodstuff called curry. Is it known here?" asked Ponder.

"Oh, silly question!" Raj said. "Does the sun rise in the east? Do large ursine creatures perform their intimate ablutions in the arboreal cover? Is the Deavasthanapathi of the Most Holy Ganges shrine at Kerala a Hindu? Do Indians eat curry?"

There was a silence.

"Lamb Gahati Methi for me, please." Johanna said, smiling at Raj. "Moderately strongly spiced, but not to a stupid _verdammte_ mecho vindalloo level."

Raj fled to the kitchen and poured a glass.

"Good idea." Howard said. He paused. He'd tried vindaloo once out of a macho desire to impress. The memory still made him wake up sweating at night. "Chicken madras for me. Kosher chicken."

"Chicken saag aloo for me!" Amy declared.

Raj returned from the kitchen.

"Dear lady doctor, I see you are educated in my national cuisine." he said. "The Sitar Indian Cuisine on 618 East Colorado is a place I can recommend." **(3)**

Sheldon came out of his inner war.

"Very well." he said. "Indian it is. By the way, did you know that so many of the heavily spiced foodstuffs we carelessly class together as "Indian" actually originate from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and in the modern world, thus cannot be described as "Indian" at all? Mine's a chicken dopiaza, f.y.i."

"Just do not try to order beef, Sheldon." Raj said, impatiently. "And I do not care what the bloody uncultured Pakistanis choose to eat. For my preference, I choose the lobster tails in korma sauce. That is as Indian as my tastes go, thank you!"

He paused, and added

"Vindaloo is like the Dalit caste. Untouchable."

And so it became an Indian night.

"May I ask." Johanna said, as they waited for delivery. "Lest night when we errived, Howard referred to my personal weapons in the context of somebody called Eragorn end a place called Meduseld. I freely edmit I do not know the reference. Howard was respectful in his use of the names. Does this essociate to a mythology in this world? To a religion, perheps? I would like to know more."

"A religion." Leonard mused. "Now you've opened a _big_ one there, Johanna."

"I know! We can watch the movies over dinner!" Sheldon almost squeaked with excitement. "This can be Lord of The Rings Night!"

"Good idea." Howard and Raj agreed.

Bernadette sighed. "Do _not_ make any Hobbit jokes. OK?"

"Sure thing, Rosie." Howard agreed. She glared at him.

"Bags I Princess Arwen! Bagsies!" Amy called. The boys, with the exception of Ponder, looked at her in disbelief.

"Well, Bernadette can be Eowyn." Amy muttered.

Ponder and Johanna shared a bemused look.

++I can provide discreet explanatory notes, if they are needed++ the voice of HEX spoke out of the air. ++I am looking forward to witnessing this move cycle, which, by the way, whilst not being formal myth on this Roundworld, has attained the status of such in the minds of many devotees++ You will learn much of Roundworld by observing++ And by the way, it also calls for superb bladder control.++

And so they all watched the movie cycle. The whole six hours. Director's Extended Cut.

"Ah." said Ponder. "Moving pictures." He was doubtful. But he reasoned that as moving pictures were so integral to this world and it had not yet been taken over by Dungeon Dimension things, it was probably OK.

And then, as Sheldon inserted the first disk, he was drawn in...

They barely noticed Raj having an argument with the hapless fellow Indian who was delivering the dinner. As it was conducted in Hindi, the gist was lost on the rest of them, but by inference Sheldon supposed it had to do with his being indignant at the lift not working and his having to cart the food manually up three flights of stairs. Ponder, seeing the delivery person was upset about something and Raj's dismissive comments in the same language were not helping, worked according to the multiversal maxim of Thou Shalt Not Get The Person Who Is Handling Your Food Pissed Off With You.**(5)** He handed over a hundred dollars from his expenses money. Indian food for six people would, he had learnt, cost at least eighty. And the man deserved a tip... he thought about it, and added another twenty. He, Ponder Stibbons, had walked up and down those flights of stairs earlier; without being burdened with boxes and bags of scaldingly hot greasy food.

Suddenly the delivery man was all smiles and a folded-hands "Namaste!"

Raj looked on disapprovingly and said something short and sharp. Something very much shorter and sharper was said in return, and the delivery man departed.

"He would have been happy with ten dollars, Professor." Raj said. "Thirty was a little bit _excessive_. Believe me. My family in India has servants."

"At least he didn't spit in anything." Ponder said, practically. He knew what an Ankh-Morporkian delivery person would have done to the food if insulted and not paid off with a good tip. "What beer do you drink with this?"

And they watched Peter Jackson's masterwork. There were some trans-world confusions.

"Elves?" Johanna shouted, reaching forward for metal to touch. A table-knife was suddenly in her hand. "Bleddy _Elves_? _Armed_ Elves?"

Ponder wondered if the Elves had engineered this work on this world in a subtle attempt to rehabilitate themselves as the good guys. He wouldn't put it past them. The others looked at her in confusion.

++Doctor Smith-Rhodes?++ This world has a different cultural perception of Elves.++_I touch metal_++. On this world and especially in this fable, they are a venerated elder race who in the mists of antiquity taught and nurtured the human race++They are portrayed as mainly benign, cultured, and sophisticated.++My advice to you is to observe this moving picture within the parameters the Roundworld people have assigned to it. ++I repeat, there is no danger here from Elves++_I touch metal_++.

"Well...yes. Of_ course_ we do. The Elder Race are good and benevolent and kind, and cannot stand Sauron and all things of evil." Sheldon said, perplexed. "Is it different on your Discworld?"

"_Mainly_ benign..." Ponder repeated. He shook his head, disbeleivingly. He had once spent a whole terrifying night fighting real elves. Eithout bewnefit of a trained Assassin girlfriend. Although the Librarian had done most of the fighting, in the spirit of "guerilla warfare".

But the tale was easy to follow, when you made the necessary mental adjustments. It was also enthralling and exciting.

By the middle of the second film, Johanna found out about Aragorn, Meduseld, and why it is vitally important to respect the hereditary sword of the Heir to Arnor. But she still asked

"This fellow Eragorn. In the real world, he might hev been better off eccepting the position of Ceptain Of The Guard in a City Wetch somewhere, yesno?"

"Steady job." Ponder said. "No heroic adventuring. Safe bed to sleep in at night..." Ponder valued these things.

"End those werewolves!" she said. "Bleddy ugly things. No werewolf I hev met would ellow itself to be ridden by a goblin! They hev more self-respect than thet."

She tried to imagine Angua von Überwald with a small orc or a goblin on her back. She felt the goblin would only have lasted for as long as it took her to throw him off and bite his head off._ The trolls were too smooth and organic and the werewolves too ugly. And the Orcs too ugly, vicious, filthy, and stupid. Like gnolls. Mr Nutt would not have been pleased. _

"Sorry?" Leonard said. "You've _met_ werewolves?"

"Ja. The one I know best would be quite bedly insulted by this portrayal. They ere a proud people, end in the main, ettrective in both forms. If you come to our world, I will introduce you, if time ellows."

"Hey! _Seriously _cool!" Howard said. "Any lady werewolves, you know, were-bitches?"

"One such is a velued friend, _ja._" she said. "End a word of edvice, Howard... you earn the right to use the b-word. She tolerates it from friends. She agrees it is fectuelly descriptive of her in et least one state, but it is _not_ a word you use lightly on first meeting her. I hope this is understood."

Howard caught the warning note. He wondered if Johanna's werewolf friend was hot, as a human. But this was _not_ the time to inquire, his self-preservation kicked in.

Towards the end of the second movie, Penny returned from her shift at the Cheesecake Factory, letting herself in without knocking. Sheldon deplored this. Johanna, Amy and Bernadette looked at each other.

"I call bagsies on the bathroom!" Amy declared, pre-empting the other two.

"Hi, guys!" Penny said. "Oh.. you're watching _this _again, huh? No wonder there's a queue for the bathroom. Not imposing a schedule on the girls, Moonpie? You're slipping!"

"I suppose we can call this an emergency comfort break, to take into account female evacuation needs." Sheldon said, grumpily. He did not seem happy about it.

"Hey, any of those samosas left? And you got poppadums and dips!" Penny exclaimed. She pulled up a seat and set about eating, after first putting down a large square box and a bottle of wine.

"Bernie? The guys at the Cheesecake Factory were real concerned about you nearly getting mugged, sweetie." Penny said, indistinctly. "They all put in and got you a cheesecake. The best. Boss threw in the red wine you like."

"Cheesecake?" Johanna said, perplexed. "Cake made from _cheese_? I confess, this sounds strange."

"Oh, _sweetie! _You don't have cheesecake on your planet? It's the _best_... hey, get plates! Get cutlery! There are two people here who ain't never eaten cheesecake before! Cheesecake virgins! I wanna watch them while they eat!"

"Efter my turn et the privy." Johanna said, as Amy returned. She had drunk a couple of sodas and two bottles of Cobra beer. Her bladder was protesting.

"We call it the _bathroom_ on this world!" Sheldon shouted, as she ran for comfort. She ignored him.

Later on, Johanna ate cheesecake for the first time in her life. A little commercial voice was trying to get her conscious attention behind the flooding of cheesecake-endorphins. Penny watched, with an almost-maternal smile on her face. Johanna and Ponder – who as a wizard was trained not to refuse exotic new desserts - were making her night...

"Penny." Johanna said, feeling like an Auditor who has just tasted chocolate for the first time – and survived. "You are coming to the Discworld with me. Bring cheesecake. End the recipe."

And much later that night, without a word being said, Leonard crossed to Penny's apartment. Johanna, waiting in the hallway, made him jump. He simply had not seen her until she stepped out into the open. They exchanged greetings, and he courteously held open the apartment door for her.

Ponder welcomed her warmly. Sheldon had gone to bed and fallen asleep. The others had gone to their various homes.

"I'll just be a moment." he whispered. "I just need HEX to send me back in time by a day or so, so I can send an email to Sheldon Cooper. Or else there'll be an amazing temporal paradox."

She grinned, appreciating.

* * *

(1) In Roundworld academic circles, UEA is the acronym for the University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, England, which is a world-leader in superconductivity,( the applied and theoretical physics of what happens at _extremely_ cold temperatures), in farming and agricultural science, especially as applied to developing economies, and despite an unfortunate recent business with dodgy statistics, its flagship remains the world-renowned Climactic Research Institute. Your humble author is one of its graduates, albeit from what Sheldon would describe as "the Inhumanities". On the Discworld, "UEA" is a lesser title of Unseen University – the acronym stands for _University of the Esoteric and Arcane._ It applied when Coin the Sourceror upgraded the University to the sort of ultra-modern brushed concrete and breezeblock that looks great at first, but soon dates and develops a permanent dingy patina of rain-sodden drywall. Or indeed sheetrock. See _**Sourcery**_ by Terry Pratchett.

(2) To disambiguate from the Assassins' Guild School's _other_ JSR, who would have been less than amused to discover an email in her inbox, if she were to have one, confirming the agreed window of time in which she might engage in any acts of coitus with her lover. Joan Sanderson-Reeves privately thought this was jolly unhygienic and in any case, while she appreciated the company of well-mannered gentlemen of the old school, she was too old for that, thank Io. And in any case her relationship with Mr Mericet did not include _that_ sort of thing, thank you very much. Crossed emails to people with the same initials or similar names have caused no end of bother. Damn: FF won't even let me put FAKE email addresses in. I have therefore substituted the "a-in-a-circle" thing with the © used in Discworld clacks-mail addresses. Looks more plausible for the DW characters to use their c-mail addresses...

(3) I looked up Indian restaurants in Pasadena, CA, so as to get my facts right. From the look of the menu, I would bet a free dinner to anyone – should I ever find myself in Pasadena, CA – that the Sitar was founded by cooks who served their time in British-Indian eateries, as the menu is so tantalisingly familiar. It has that unique substance Chicken Tikka Masala on the menu, for one thing, a unique Indian curry that has _never, ever, seen India, Bangladesh or Pakistan in its life._ CTM was devised by Asian cooks in Britain as a "special" to meet the curry needs of the British palate. Essentially it's pieces of Tandoori chicken bound in a sauce which is essentially a curried tomato soup. Legend has it an Asian chef in Glasgow or Birmingham – accounts differ – created it on the spot in response to a customer request for something in a mildly curried tomato sauce. He used a large anonymous tin of catering tomato soup, cream and spices. And a legend was born. It is apparently in the Top Five of Britain's favourite foods.

And, a menu item to make expat Brits in California feel right at home: the Sitar restaurant in Pasadena, CA, does indeed serve balti curry (originated in Birmingham, England). I almost missed it: it appears on the menu as "Butter Curry", which is neatly descriptive of the cholesterol-laden heart-disease inducing Balti. (Meat, vegt and spices stewed in a bath of clarified butter, _ghee_). As the word "balti" literally means "bucket", this is probably why the name was changed, as Americans are more cautious than we are about the provenance of their restaurant food...

And the Sitar does takeaway kebabs. What is there not to like? Ah, you could feel at home there. If the **Sitar Indian Cuisine** on **618 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91101**, tel. **626-449-5954** and fax : **626-796-0513** ever wishes to offer me a free dinner in return for the plug, I am open to entertaining the idea. Thank you.

(4) The wizards of Unseen University instinctively knew this and were punctiliously polite to their catering staff. Unfailingly so.


	7. The Epinephrene Activation

_**The Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum**_

_**(Adventures in Nerdvana)**_

_**Chapter seven**_©

the Epiniphrene Activation

A long one this time, but it couldn't easily be split into two parts.

Two scientific questions, one philosophical with overtones of Quantum, one neurochemical.

_The Xeno Paradox thing; If I go back in time, feel a need to evacuate my bladder, but shoot my grandfather first and **then** use his bathroom, can I be said, in any meaningful sense, to have used the bathroom at all?_

_Epinephrene: a neurochemical trigger which when suddenly released in excess in the hypothalamus, triggers the body's fight-or-flight reflex. Especially marked in prey species when they sense a nearby predator. _

Saturday morning.

Johanna woke up early and wondered at the faint red letters on the wall, seemingly painted over many times but still just about readable, which appeared to read "_Die, Sheldon, die_!"

She looked fondly down on Ponder, who did not look as if he were going to be surfacing any time soon. Then swung her legs round and got out of bed.

There was only silence from Sheldon's room. She listened for a second or two, and categorised it as the silence of somebody inside the room, sleeping deeply, but with only the very occasional scrape or slither to advertise their presence and perhaps that tiny bit more warmth in the local atmosphere, subtly advertising there was a living human body nearby. She was trained to detect these subtle signs.

_Better not wake him, then. _**(1)**

++Good morning, Johanna++Did you sleep well?++

"Good morning, HEX! Yes, we slept well, thenk you for esking. Do you know where the coffee is? I hev no wish to ewaken Sheldon."

++Look on the cupboard underneath the free-standing fixture.++Milk is in the refrigerator behind you++A refrigerator is a machine working on the principle of equitable redistribution of heat via a gas exchange coil normally mounted to its rear++It keeps things cold++

HEX patiently guided her through the array of labour-saving devices the Californians used in a kitchen. Johanna had never seen any of these clever machines before. But she was a fast learner.

When Penny and Leonard came in without knocking, she was well advanced on preparing breakfast.

"Morning, sweetie!" Penny called, setting down a box of foodstuffs. "Did'ja sleep well?"

"Very well, _ja!_ End you both?" She felt a light breeze on her neck and heard a faint "pop!" noise.

Is the bathroom free?" Ponder called. He was standing by the travelling machine, which was oscillating very slightly. Penny jumped. Johanna frowned. Odd. She would normally have sensed him approaching. He didn't usually go _"pop!"_, though. Other noises, especially after a big University dinner, but never _"pop!"__**(2)**_

"Errr.. just go straight in, Professor." Penny said.

"Thanks. It is after nine o'clock?"

"Five past." Leonard said.

Ponder grinned.

"Got to respect the room-mate agreement." he said. "You're OK? Did everything you need to in your half-hour?"

"Too late for me." Leonard said, shaking his head. "It's after nine. Sheldon gets touchy about these things. I used Penny's instead."

"Fair enough." Ponder said, and went into the bathroom. Johanna noticed he was already fully dressed and satisfactorily groomed. Odd. She'd left him sleeping...

"Let's do breakfast." said Penny.

Sheldon Cooper awoke to singing and two girls dancing around the kitchen, setting up breakfast and dancing to _Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. _Penny was still in minimal nightwear, just shorts and a low-cut vest top. Johanna was in a long t-shirt which Leonard recognised as one of his own. Although he wasn't complaining. He smiled and appreciated the show.

Sheldon appeared. He had his usual early-morning look of Ming The Merciless combined with irritated hamster.

"Morning, moonpie!" Penny said, dancing past him, stroking his cheek and blowing a kiss.

Completely unmoved by the minimal clothing and bared legs on display, Sheldon folded his arms and pursed his lips.

"And this is in aid of?" he inquired, coolly.

"Busy day today, sweetie." Penny said. Bernadette and Howard are over any minute. So's Raj. And Amy. I thought, we all have breakfast here, together. Then we get out with Ponder and Johanna. Show them some of the sights."

"Good plen." Johanna said, approvingly. "Got any bacon?"

"In the refrigerator." Leonard said. "It's in a box with the yellow biohazard sticker on it. Just don't touch anything marked "Sheldon".

Ponder Stibbons appeared again. He was dressed and washed, Johanna noted, in clothes probably borrowed from Leonard. They fitted well.

"Hi." he said. "Anyone in the bathroom?"

"Well... no..." Leonard said, doubtfully. Johanna frowned again.

"Thanks." Ponder said. He kissed Johanna on the cheek on the way to the bathroom. _Well, _she thought._ It's Ponder alright. But I never saw him leaving the bathroom?_

An inelegant clumping up the stairs to the open door announced Amy Farrah-Fowler.

"Bezzies!" she exclaimed, smiling widely. Penny skipped over to her, singing _Whoa-hoa, girls – just wanna have fun! _and drawing her into the song. Sheldon's lips pursed even further. Somebody said

"Oh. Sorry, didn't realise somebody was already in here. I'll wait."

Amy had picked up Raj on the way. Seeing Penny in her night-clothes and Johanna in a long t-shirt that barely covered her upper thighs, he gulped uncertainly and went a deeper, richer, brown.

"Come on, sweetie. You've seen me in less than this!" Penny exclaimed. "_That's all we really wa-a-a-a-nt!"_

Ponder yawned his way out of the bedroom, hair uncombed, unshaven and in shorts and t-shirt. He nodded at everyone, and met himself backing out of the bathroom.

"Bit of a queue, I'm afraid." Ponder said to Ponder. Ponder nodded.

"Early days yet." he remarked, as Ponder Stibbons left the bathroom. He nodded amiably at Ponder and Ponder, as Ponder Stibbons went into the bathroom. Johanna noted that the two fully dressed Ponders were dressed differently.

"Still, nothing HEX can't put right." Ponder said to himself. Everyone else went into a still disbelieving silence as they tried to digest what their eyes were telling them.

"Just long as we all remember what we've said and to whom." the just-out-of-bed Ponder said, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. "Otherwise there'll be an amazing temporal paradox."

"Well, yes." Ponder said, digesting it. "But one school of thought suggests it's all sort of predestined and we'll say the right things at the right time anyway. We'll be forced to."

He paused.

"This _is_ Saturday morning at eleven minutes past nine?"

"I'm dreaming this." muttered Penny.

"You're not." Johanna said, realising. A laugh bubbled up. "Penny, you're really not."

Howard and Bernadette arrived. They heard Howard say "Wonder what Johanna's wearing today..._Ouch_!" There was a pause, and he added "At least Sheldon cooks a good breakfast. One of the good things about him."

They walked in, Howard rubbing his upper arm and Bernadette smiling her pinball smile. It took a few moments for her to register, but she blinked twice and said

"Twins? No... _triplets_?"

Another Ponder Stibbons popped into existence. There was a "pop!" noise and a little outrushing of displaced air.

"_Quadruplets?"_exclaimed Bernadette. She jumped.

"Well, I'm from eight o'clock on Tuesday evening." one of the Ponders said. "you're obviously the Ponder from Saturday morning, the one who belongs here, as you're not dressed yet. Besides, I remember seeing me."

"I'll try again tomorrow, shall I?" the newly arrived Ponder said, courteously. "I'm from ten o'clock tonight, by the way."

"Would somebody like to tell me what's going on?" Sheldon demanded, with some heat.

The fourth Ponder excused himself.

"Ask Ponder." he said, and disappeared. There was a pop!" noise and a slight breeze of inrushing air.

"Back to triplets, then." Amy observed. Sheldon glared at the nearest Ponder. Another Ponder took the opportunity to get into the bathroom.

"Don't take too long." the original Ponder called. "I need to shower and shave."

"_Well?"_ Sheldon Cooper demanded.

"I think you'll find this is wholly in keeping with the Room-mate Agreement." Ponder said, mildly. "Nobody is going to be using the bathroom after nine-thirty a.m."

"And... you're using your time-machine, right!" Leonard said, realising.

"We only get half an hour, Leonard." Ponder said. "And nobody ever said it had to be nine till nine-thirty _on the same day. _Sheldon, if it makes you any happier, you can look on this as maximising efficiency and capacity? It's a basic principle of good engineering... oh, you're finished? Thanks! Got to shower." he excused himself.

A relieved Ponder Stibbons smiled at them.

"Got to go. I'm from tomorrow, by the way. Five o'clock."

"Does anything happen in the next day we need to know about?" Amy asked. "I mean, yesterday Bernie got mugged..."

Ponder considered this.

"Sorry, can't answer." he said. "Temporal paradox and all that. But today's good. You might like it. Keep an eye on the cars, bee-tee-double-you. Got to go!" There was another "pop!"

"God-_damn_!" Howard said. He looked at the time-travelling machine speculatively.

"Hex?"

"++Yes, Howard?++

"Could you, you know, bring back another two of Bernadette from the future and deliver them to the apartment? For about, say, thirty minutes?There's something I've always wanted to do, and it involves identical triplets... OUCH!"

++I think you have your answer, Howard++

"Hey , what was _that_ for?" Howard demanded, rubbing his arm. "It's not as if I was gonna be unfaithful to you. Not_ technically_, at least."

"Hey, three of Leonard..." Penny breathed. "No, better make it at least five. And a sixth for emergencies. In case one don't work."

Leonard did a bit of quick math.

"_Seven_ of me?" he asked. He looked incredulously at Penny, who looked straight back at him. Her eyes dared him to argue.

"I don't do things by halves, sweetie." she said. "You should know that by now."

"Or sevenths..." Leonard muttered.

"What gets me is that you only gave it thirty minutes!" Bernadette said, indignantly. "I mean, buster, _three_ of me, you're gonna want to give me more than ten lousy minutes!"

Raj whispered something insistent into Howard's ear and looked towards Sheldon. Howard nodded.

"Yeah, you're right, dude. HEX, don't try this one with Sheldon. _One _of him's enough."

Sheldon scowled at him.

"I was thinking it might have practical applications for the next Physics Bowl." he said, with affronted dignity.

"Wouldn't that pose a problem, Sheldon?" Leonard asked, after a group wince.

"How so?" Sheldon demanded. "Four trans-temporal versions of me, and nobody else to share the glory with when I inevitably triumph. A plan with no drawbacks."

"Sheldon," Leonard said, patiently. "Who does it leave for you to blame when you inevitably screw up?"

++It also poses problems from an ethical perspective++ HEX said from out of the air. ++Whichever time I extract three alternative Sheldons from, they would, from the point in time in which the Physics Bowl takes place, already have participated and therefore, with full eidetic memory, would already know the questions and the answers++ It would therefore contravene the rules++

And then breakfast was ready. Conversation turned to the _Lord of the Rings_ film trilogy they'd watched the previous night.

"This Minas Tirith." Johanna said. "A very impressive citedel. I would not like to be part of eny ermy essailing it. I found it herd to believe it wes not real, end only a pert of the moving-pictures' maker's ert."

"Ah yes." Sheldon said. "The white citadel of Gondor, built into the living rock of the mountain, Man and Nature in harmony."

Johanna nodded.

"_Ja._" she said. "But are man end mountain in full harmony in terms of the plumbing? Many thousands of people must live there. Where ere the privvies? How is the plumbing organised? The drainage would hev to be very, very, good. End the people tesked with building sewers end driving them, unseen through the living rock. Even if they rely on septic tenks, these must be emptied periodicelly. If I were besieging the place, I would hold beck eny essault for some months, perheps locate end block up ell the outlet pipes. End then wait."

"Er, Johanna? Don't spoil their illusions, sweetie." Penny said, softly. She shuddered at Johanna's proposed strategy for investing the city, and wondered why General Gothmorg or whoever the big ugly Orc was called hadn't thought of that. It would be truly _evil..._

Sheldon shuddered too.

"Well, in normal circumstances, a lot less of the people of Gondor dwelt in the citadel." he tried to explain. "In the time of the siege, the city was augmented by refugee folk driven out of the City of Osgiliath by war. I'm certain Osgiliath would have had..." he shuddered again "...adequate bathroom facilities for its population."

Johanna looked at him gravely.

"And so whetever toileting end sewerage facililties the Citadel hed would hev been overwhelmed by a messive influx of refugees who would overload it." she said. "Victory to the besiegers."

Ponder wondered about this. The Dwarfs of the Discworld lived in deep caverns in the rocks. They must need to, er, go to the bathroom too.. all that rat produce must set up a biological imperative... he intervened to bring the discourse back to a place that would not spoil the illusions of their hosts.

"Johanna, earlier in the film cycle we saw the Fellowship wandering through what had once been a massive Dwarf city in the mountains." he reminded her.

"_Ja._ Like Bonk end the Schmeltzberg." she said. "Thet pert of the film was impressive end eccurete."

"So with tens of thousands of Dwarfs having lived in a city carved from rock. Can you imagine their problems with the plumbing? Yet they must have come up with a solution. You'd expect Dwarfs to migrate to the big city, like they do to Ankh-Morpork. Maybe Minas Tirith ran on Dwarf plumbing."(3,4)

This seemed like an acceptable compromise solution. With no desire to discuss Middle Earth's sanitary arrangements over breakfast, the conversation moved on.

"Those Dwarfs, though." Ponder said, thoughtfully.

"Aren't they cool!" Howard agreed. "Amazing costumes and weapons!"

"_Ja."_ Johanna said. "But generally they do not fight in ceremonial armour. Even though warfare hes its ceremonial espects. End the weapons were too ornate. Those were funeral weapons, the ones crefted to go into the rock with a Dwarf et their burial. They normally fight with plain, but very very good, exes end mettocks. No ornamentation. Just good steel end sherp edges. _Very_ sherp edges."

Everybody looked at her. She continued.

"But _very_ good fighters, though. Thet Gimli, for instance!"

"Oh yes. Gimli at Helm's Deep. Victor in forty-two single combats against Orcs!"

Johanna nodded. "Gimli. Most impressive. Although I don't understend why she refused combet egainst humans, claiming they were too large for her. Dwerfs on my world would hev fought regardless, end aimed their blows et the knees end the groin."

"SHE?" Leonard exclaimed, after digesting the dissonant pronoun.

"Ja. _She_. Gimli was definitely female, when you know whet to look for. I understood thet all Dwerfs are "he" and "him" end "Gloin_sson _out of convention, especially in treditional communities. But she reminded me of a Dwerf friend on the Discworld, especially when Galedriel showed her a different way for females to present themselves. Like my friend Cheery, she wes somewhet overcome to see femininity end realise there is a different way."

"Your Dwarves are _female_?" Leonard burst out.

"Epproximately fifty per cent are, ja." she agreed. "Elthough it is difficult for the untrained eye et first."

""_It was said by Gimli that there are few Dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the Dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no Dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone'._" quoted Sheldon.

"Thet's how it is!" Johanna said. "It sounds es if Gimli wes dropping a great big hint ebout herself there. It would not hev been proper, in Dwarf convention, for her to outright state "yes, I em a female".

There was a silence. Johanna was sitting on the central spot of the sofa nest to Sheldon; Penny had moved over to her right. Both were sitting with legs tucked up under them. Howard and Raj were sitting opposite and trying not to stare too obviously. The girls graciously ignored this.

"Really, hon? Lady dwarfs?" Penny asked. She was grinning.

"Really so! When you visit my world, I will introduce you to Cheery. She would like you!"

"Seriously cool..." Howard said.

Breakfast finished.

"What's the plan for today?" Amy Farrah-Fowler asked. Privately, she was eager to visit this Discworld. She romantically viewed herself as dressing like a stately and lovely Elf-Queen, re-inventing herself in a whole new world, despairingly loved by all. It fitted in with the inner Amy in a big way.

"Well." Johanna said, slipping off the coach, aware of Howard surreptitiously trying to see up her night-shirt. For some reason this amused her. She reached up, aware of the male gaze upon her as the hem of the nightshirt rose up her leg, and took down one of the replica swords from the wall. She took a couple of practice swings.

_Made of some sort of trophy metal with plasticated ornamentation. Too ornate. Unbalanced. You would be lucky to hit the man standing next to your target. And even then the sword would break. These are meant for display, not for practical use._

She heard Howard and Raj make gulping noises as she dummied a few blows.

_Emmanuelle at the Guild School would snap this over her thigh and swear and throw the pieces away. Then she'd demand to know who had brought a piece of verdammte dreck like this into class, and make sure they knew what a _**real**_ sword looks and feels like. _

She stored a thought for future use. Then returned the display weapon to the wall and took down a blade that was wholly unfamiliar to her. It took the form of a semicircular crescent-shaped blade, whose extreme points were linked by a long bar which she deduced was meant to be gripped by both hands spaced widely apart, with the blade pointing out.

_Ah. _

She held it in front of her with both hands, then made a few moves, allowing her body to flow in the ways the weapon seemed to dictate.

_You can thrust with it. It also allows you to block moves made by a blade-armed foe. The weapon is its own defensive shield. A different stance allows you to hack. Slash. Or thrust with the points... they can stab most effectively.._

"Wow!" somebody said, appreciatively. Sheldon's voice was explaining that she was executing the most perfect _bet'leh_ moves. "Oh, that was a positively stunning _mek'leH_ offense!"... he sounded incredibly excited.

_The language he is using sounds like a Dwarf with catarrh and half a rat stuck in his throat. Now if I do this, shift my right hand to this alternative central hand-hold.. _

"Ouch!" said Howard. Like Raj and Leonard, he was appreciating not so much her _bat'leth_ moves, as the spectacle of an attractive woman, who wasn't wearing very much, going through gymnastic moves with a large bladed weapon. What wasn't there to like? Except the fact Bernadette had just slapped him.

"She's like this." Ponder explained. He was appreciating it too. "It's a brand-new weapon. Can I buy her one anywhere for Hogswatch?"

"Comic-book store!" Leonard said. "we gotta go there!"

"Uh.. Johanna? Sweetie?" Penny urged, concerned. Johanna came down from the special place of the trained fighter, aware the night-shirt was riding up around her thighs, intently observed by three hypnotically entranced men, Ponder Stibbons (who knew what to expect)... and Sheldon Cooper, who'd only been watching the sword-play. She patted the hem down, holding the _bat'leth_ in her other hand. Held centrally, it balanced beautifully.

"I _like _this weapon." she said. "it hes possibilities. The Agatean people on my world have something similar, elthough it is usually mounted on a steff end used es a pole-weapon. Whet is its name?"

"You are holding a standard combat _Bat'letH _of the Klingon warrior people." Sheldon said, portenteously. "Its name means _Sword of Honour_. That is the regulation sized weapon carried by Klingons aboard their Bird of Prey battleships, although there is a smaller version meant to be held in one hand, the _Mek'LetH. _I believe I may have one I can show you? There is also the Sword of Kahless, which is larger and deadlier, but the original of which was lost into the void so as to prevent civil war among the Klingon Houses.."

Sheldon went scurrying to find the alternative version.

"I believe I understood some of that." she said. She swung the weapon thoughtfully.

"Sweetie, it isn't _real_." Penny said. There was a horrified gasp at the blasphemy. "The Klingons are an alien race on a TV show. Ugly guys with corrugated foreheads. The sword was invented for the show. **(5)**Star Trek."

"It is still a bleddy good weapon." Johanna said. "Ponder, we must find out where to obtain these. The Guild would be interested. Besides, I so much look forward to seeing the look on Emmie's face when I present her with one!"

"Should you both get dressed?" Amy Farrah-Fowler urged. "We've still got all those clothes to try on! And for the record, some girls are perfectly happy if their boyfriends buy them tiaras."

Penny grinned. "Good point, sweetie! If Johanna goes out dressed like that and waving a freaking great blade, people's minds are gonna fuse! Besides, I ain't showered yet."

"That's noticeable." Sheldon Cooper said, wrinkling his nose. "While it isn't totally offensive yet, would you ladies care to perform basic hygienic administration before I consider it a formal strike?"

"Come _on,_ Sheldon. Penny _never _smells bad!" Amy said, proving the point by standing behind her and taking a deep appreciative sniff. "Ah. I love the smell of fresh pheromenes in the morning!"

"I ain't complaining either." Howard added. "Hot gals working up a sweat. You can't ever get offended by it."

"I will shower." Johanna decided. "Ponder, perheps you cen show courtesy to our host by weshing up the breakfast things? It is only correct."

"Help him, Leonard." Penny said, standing up. She looked round, suspecting Amy might attempt to sniff the sofa where she'd been sitting.

* * *

The gang rode out together in two cars, stopping second at the Comic Book Store.

Their first stop had been at Mrs Wolowitz'. Although Howard was married and living with Bernadette, his mother was pleased to see him every day, stressing that she wasn't forcing him to do so and he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart and out of consideration for his old nearly house-bound mother who lived alone, _as a good Jewish boy should, Howard!_

While the rest of the gang were eating the obligatory second breakfast downstairs, Johanna had gleaned that the purpose of the day was to prepare Mrs Wolowitz to attend synagogue in a suitably fitting and appropriately dressed state. Bernadette had sighed at the prospect and looked as if she were steeling herself for an unpleasant but necessary duty. Amy and Penny had embarrassedly avoided meeting her glance. _Noblesse oblige..._

"Howard, does your mother require a lot of essistence?" Johanna had asked.

Bernadette's eyes had been silently pleading.

"I'm sure she'd like to meet you." he said, reading the signs. He then took a deep breath.

"_MOM! WE GOT NEW COMPANY!"_

"_WHO ARE THEY, HOWARD? MORE FRIENDS CALLING ROUND FOR A PLAYDATE? YOU DON'T PLAN TO INTRODUCE ME ANY TIME SOON? WHAT, ARE YOU ASHAMED OF YOUR OWN MOTHER?"_

Bernadette surprised Johanna. Her voice was loudest of all.

"_SHE'S A VISITING RESEARCHER AT CALTECH! SHE'D SURE LIKE TO MEET YOU, MRS WOLOWITZ!"_

"_SHE? WELL, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? IS SHE SINGLE? HAVE YOU INTRODUCED HER TO THAT NICE BOY RAJESH? HE SURE NEEDS A NICE GIRL. __**ANY**__ GIRL!"_

"_I'LL BRING HER UP, MRS WOLOWITZ!" _

Bernadette took Johanna's hand and hustled her up the stairs. Penny looked at Amy.

"That was _ruthless_." she said, eventually. Amy shrugged.

"If I had to hose down Howard's mom every Saturday morning, I'd be ruthless, too." said Amy.

Johanna and Bernadette came down the stairs some time later.

"Do you hev to do thet every week?" Johanna asked. Bernadette nodded, grimly. Johanna squeezed her hand in sympathy. It hadn't been _too_ bad an experience, she supposed. She'd had to hand-wash and medicate a rhinoceros with a skin condition at the Zoo. Hippos and very large seals and walruses posed management problems too. In a way she'd been used to it. And underneath the need to shout and screech, Howard's mother had been grateful for the care and attention, repeatedly asking _"ARE YOU JEWISH, JOHANNA? THAT'S A GOOD JEWISH NAME. THERE'S A JOHANNA IN SCRIPTURE. SHE GETS A WHOLE BOOK TO HERSELF! THERE ARE LOADSA JEWISH FOLK WITH RED HAIR. YOU'RE A GOOD GIRL. YOU KNOW ABOUT DUTY TO FAMILY. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FAMILY. YOUR MOM MUST MISS YOU."_

Howard had, with Ponder's assistance, helped Mrs Wolowitz into one of the cars to take her to her temple for the morning service.

_YOU KIDS EAT! ENJOY! THERE'S PLENTY! _

The rear of the car had dropped to an alarmingly small distance above the road surface, but Howard appeared used to this, drawing out carefully and relatively slowly. Johanna raised an eyebrow.

"It sure explains a lot about Howard". Leonard said. "We've all been to other places and moved to here. He lived here till he was nearly thirty. The thing with him around women, for instance."

"Classical overcompensation." Amy said, spreading a latke with apple sauce. "He feels compelled to assert himself, often inappropriately, with women who are not his mother. You must have noticed, Johanna."

"_Ja, _but so long as he does not get _too _offensive." she said, regarding the breakfast spread. "Much cen be forgiven. This is a sort of bread, yesno?"

"Spread it with the cream cheese and put some of the _lox_ on top." Penny advised her. "Hon, food to die for!"

"I believe I recognise it." Johanna said. She wasn't hungry, but she appreciated a new taste. "On my world, this would be food known in parts of Kletch. Omnia hes a cuisine like this. Smale, end the Cenotine country. Howard's mother is _very_ Cenotine."

"You got Jews on your world?" Leonard asked. He didn't sound surprised.

They compared notes. Judaism worshipped one god and one only. So did Omnians and their older, parent religion, that of the Cenotines. The Cenotines were an old, old, people who had suddenly appeared on the Discworld about three or four thousand years ago. They had brought sacred holy books with them, the meaning of which they continually disputed.

Judaism was bound about with taboo and ritual, a large part of which concerned permissible foodstuffs. The Cenotines also had an aversion to pork and forbade mixing meat with dairy produce. There were kosher butchers on the Discworld. The shared word meant the same on both worlds.

Both religions had spawned a schismatic religion – in Roundworld's case, _two_ – that had grown to be bigger, more strident, and aggressive, than the parent. Johanna remarked that the Cenotines, these days, were most known for having created the _golem,_ an inert humanoid made out of clay that once activated by a holy_ chem_, was virtually immortal, invulnerable and unstoppable.

"Ah." Sheldon Cooper said. "A virtually invulnerable wandering monster first encountered in Level Three, which may be bound to the will of a magic user by judicious use of the correct spells. Based on the mediaeval myth of Rabbi Loew of Prague, who according to the account first mastered the secret of making a man out of clay and animating it by writing a _chem_ on its brow. Mary Wolstonecroft Shelley revisited the idea when she updated it, in the Age of Reason, to incorporate the idea of a flesh golem made out of human bodily parts. Frankenstein, f.y.i, is _not_ the name of the monster, but of its maker, Herr Baron Doktor Frankenstein. I find it distressing how so many people make that fundamental error!"

"Isn't thet en Igor thing?" Johanna asked. Sheldon smiled, smugly.

"I'm afraid this is another little confusion. In the later films of the Frankenstein story, Igor was in fact Doctor Frankenstein's laboratory assistant."

Johanna nodded. _That_ fitted. And Matron Igorina had told her about the All-Time Top Ten Mad Marsters, who included a Herr Doktor Finklestein.

Howard and Ponder returned. Ponder looked shaken and out of breath, as if he'd been doing manual labour supporting a heavy load. Both were wearing little black skullcaps, she noted.

"Sorry it took so long." Howard apologised. "Mom made me stay for at least as long as it took to say _Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad_ . And to tell me not to forget I'm Jewish. They took Ponder for Jewish too. Well, you could see why." **(6)**

"Dark hair, glasses, not athletic build, not married, university professor. Yup, easy mistake." agreed Leonard.

"Well, Howie, you can take the yermulkah off now." Bernadette said. "you too, Ponder."

They cleared up the breakfast things as a courtesy and washed up the plateware. Then drove on to the Comic Book Shop.

Johanna wondered why the men went in first, almost rushing to be in a favourite place. Ponder was swept in with them.

"Boys and their toys, sweetie." Penny said. The three native girls stood in the doorway and looked at each other, reluctant to enter. Amy took a deep breath.

"Looks like it's me first." she said.

"Short straw, hon." Penny replied. The other three followed, more or less reluctantly. Johanna followed on, recognising the feel and dank old-papery smell of the place: Dave's Stamps, Pins and Agatean Man-Gi Comic Books Exchange, on Cripes Alley in Dolly Sisters. Ponder sometimes went there.(7**) **She had been content to wait outside. Even though good practice dictated that a female Assassin should be prepared to go in anywhere she liked,**(8)** if only just to point out that she _can, _Johanna did not feel a need to enforce this _all_ the time.

She adjusted the set of her black veldt hat**(9)** and stepped in.

All conversation stopped. A motley group of exclusively male shop-browsers were suddenly all attention. Heads looked up from racks of comics, and attention was diverted away from the sort of tie-in models that _Man-Gi _comics were now attracting. Johanna took them in. So there _were_ Dibblers on this world. She had wondered where they were and what they marketed.

"Hi boys!" said Amy, who seemed pleased with the attention and scrutiny. Penny and Bernadette looked at each other and shrugged.

Johanna went to explore the place. Eyes followed her. The most obvious belonged to a shapeless sort of man in elasticated loose trousers and a grubby grey t-shirt. He was unshaven, and she supposed his breath would smell if she got too close. She reminded herself not to bend too far over things whilst wearing a top like this.

"Ah. " she said, breaking the silence. "_Man-gi _comics, yesno?"

The guy at the counter, who'd been covertly observing her, sharply said

"We prefer it to be pronounced _manga_, please!" he said, in a voice as hang-dog as his appearance. Johanna smiled at him. He looked as if his particular human lineage had been descended from birds **(10)**. Specifically, the Lappet-Faced Worrier of Lancre, a bird not so much of prey as of desperate prayer, to a God it suspected wasn't listening.

"You must be Stuart." she said, assembling information. "Hello. I'm pleased to meet you. There may be pieces of equipment thet you cen provide!"

She extended a hand. He took it.

"She's with us." Leonard said, proudly.

"Yeah. Special discount!" added Howard. "As per Agreement."

Stuart was finding it hard to let go of her hand. Johanna found herself exploiting this.

"This is Doctor Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa." Sheldon Cooper explained. "Which, as you will no doubt know, is a very prestigious institution with a world reputation in botany and zoology through its School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences. She will be working with us at Caltech."

"_Ja_, I'm from APES." she confirmed. She'd read her background research notes. The acronym amused her. (11)

"And _we_ got to show her around." Howard added. "Ain't we the lucky ones!"

"And of course Professor Stibbons, too." Sheldon added. "On a visit from the U.E.A. University in Norwich, England. (12). Astrophysics, particle physics, and theoretical and applied Quantum mechanics."

Stuart spared him barely a glance.

"Hi, Prof." he said, not taking his eyes away from Johanna.

"So we get the special discount, right? The Arrangement?" Howard prompted him.

Stuart grunted, non-commitally. The Arrangement stated that if the Caltech gang persuaded any hot chicks to pass through the door of the comic store and stay for an negotiable length of time, they got discount. And today they'd brought _four.._. well, _three_... but hell, he'd once dated Amy, so back up to four again.. and one was a very easy-on-the-eye new face. Green eyes, too. And red hair. Kinda like Poison Ivy, in the Batman 'verse. And the new professor looked like the kinda guy who was into comics.

Putting aside a growing feeling that the amused green eyes opposite him had seen a lot, Stuart asked

"So what can we do for you, Doctor?"

"Please. Cell me Johanna." she said. "Stuart, I wish to acquire _bat'leths._ I am told you may be able to provide them."

"I may be able to do that, yes." he agreed. "What sort of price-range were you thinking of?"

"First ellow me to consult with my financial edvisor." she said, taking the opportunity to withdraw her hand. She brought out the cellphone, dialled a random set of numbers for the look of it, and said

"Mr Hex? Doctor Smith-Rhodes, here."

++Good morning, doctor. How may I assist you?++

A vaguely metallic voice speaking out the air was not anything out of the ordinary and went without comment.

"Es you know, Mr Hex, I hev recently errived in the United States end I em not yet completely femiliar with the local currency. Please edvise me es to the total amount I mey draw on, expressed in United States Dollars. Please do not tell me verbally, but send a text messege. Thenk you. I will hold."

A moment or two later, a figure appeared on screen. Penny, standing behind Johanna, looked down in curiosity.

"Sweet freakin' holy sacred _cow_!" she breathed.

"Wow..." said Howard. "So being an academic in South Africa pays _that_ well?"

"I elso hev a little femily money." Johanna shrugged. "End certain contrect work I perform pays well."

Ponder winced.

++I can elso advise you that you have a very good credit rating++ HEX said. ++I will text you your current Visa credit card limit++

Another number flashed up on screen. Penny made little high-pitched back of the throat sound. Howard whistled.

++I spoke to the decision-making people at Visa.++Their computer was pleased to allow you a high limit.++

_I'll bet it was persuaded, _Ponder thought. _HEX is good at these things. _

"Thenk you, Mr Hex." she said. "You hev been most helpful."

++Have a good day, Doctor Smith-Rhodes++Please remind Professor Stibbons that he also designated me to act as his financial advisor whilst in this country.++I note that thus far, he has only paid for an Indian dinner and a tank of gas++.HEX signed off.

"OK" Stuart breathed. "From the reactions of people I know and usually trust, I concede you can pay for the item. But, er, while I would be too happy to sell you the item in question, I just need to ask a few questions. You're obviously over twenty-one? Err. Your address and phone number?"

"Any excuse, Stuart!" Penny said.

"You gotta try... do you intend to carry the item elsewhere in the lower forty-eight, across any state lines? As these items are downright illegal in some states, and I don't really want the FBI calling round again." He paused. "Howard. There was a case in Colorado where a guy dressed up as a Klingon and robbed a bank. Carrying a batleth. Problem was, he'd bought it _here._ So I gotta play by the rules."

"I understand" Johanna said.

"You don't intend to export them outside the USA? Many countries have got regulations on this. Strict ones."

"I do not intend to take them to eny country on this planet, no." she said, with absolute honesty.

"But when you return to South Africa?"

"They will not be returning with me to Sed-Efrrika, no." she assured him, again with complete scrupulous honesty.

"Come here first when you want to sell them on. I'll broker it for you."

"I will bear you in mind, Stuart. You are being most helpful." She smiled at him again.

"Do you have martial arts experience?" he asked. "It makes it safer and easier to move with these items and wield them appropriately I can sell you a Klingon martial arts manual explaining the positions and moves."

"Yes." Johanna said, thinking of her Guild colleague, Miss Pretty Butterfly. She taught Agatean Culture, which included lots of ways to smash somebody's kidneys out through their navel.

"Including weapon skills?"

"I believe I qualify." she said, straight-faced.

"Purpose of purchase?"

"Learning end teaching. I wish to edd it to my skills-set."

"Do you know any certified weapons teachers licenced to work with live blades?"

"Yes." she said, thinking of her Guild colleague Emmanuelle les-Deux-Epées, who taught swords and bladed weapons. She wondered if Emmie might like a short holiday in the USA. "A very close friend is licenced to teach the safe... well the _eppropriate.._. use of bladed weapons, up to end incuding the sherp ones. I work with her often."

Stuart nodded.

"I can sell you a batleth with a cold blade. That is, blunted and dulled for entertainment and recreational use only."

"How many do you hev for sale right now?"

"They're expensive items to keep on stock. I've got three in the back room. But they're made of weapon-grade steel. No junk. You can get a sword-smith to put an edge on them, but you ain't heard that from me."

"Thet sounds ecceptible." she said, thinking professionally about the potential for disaster if Howard, Leonard and Sheldon got hold of sharp edges. Better she taught them on dulled blades. "In principle, I cen buy them. All three."

Stuart tried not to show retailers' ecstacy at a rare customer with lots of money. And who, as a bonus, was also _hot. _He glanced nervously down at her chest. _Hell, those freckles go all the way down..._

"I'll go get them. Hey, Captain Sweatpants! Stop making the ladies feel uncomfortable!"

Howard and Leonard were looking at her hopefully. She smiled generously at them. The guy in the stained grey t-shirt and sweatpants backed off from Bernadette.

"If I em to teach you some weapon-hendling skills" she said, "we mey es well begin with blades you _like,_ end hev hendled before. I do not see Rajesh?"

"Oh, he's..." Leonard nodded to the rear of the shop. Raj was in deep communion with a waif-like young girl with bobbed black hair and big, startled, eyes. Johanna assessed her. _Descended from deer. Muntjak, probably. Spook her and she'll run. She's already apprehensive for hunters. _

"A friend of his?" she said quietly to Penny.

"Yeah, that's Lucy. Nice kid, but really nervy. If she sees us taking interest she'll run out back or bail out through the bathroom window. And that's kinda hard on Raj. He really likes her."

"Better we take no notice, then. Stuart, let me see the goods!"

Johanna weighed up one of the batleths. Then she went through a display of some of the fighting moves she'd instinctively evolved that morning, becoming one with the weight and balance and logic of the weapon. As she was wearing shorts, she was not inhibited this time about incorporating high kicks and pirouettes.

The whole store stopped and watched, a haze of frustrated male pheromenes. Even the shy Lucy watched, open-mouthed. Eventually, Johanna stopped and rested the weapon.

These are _nice_ batleths. And genuine weapon steel, I em pleased to see. I think I shell buy them."

She had learnt about the tell-tales of poorly cast or engineered steel. A Dibbler sword that snapped in two – or humiliatingly, bent double – during combat was an expensive liability. And while this Stuart had a little Dibbler in him, these articles were good enough, at least for training.

"Fifteen hundred dollars each..." he said, after some inner battle had taken place. Johanna was reaching for the magical plastic card marked VISA, the card HEX had assured her would buy _anything. _But Leonard and Penny together blocked her arm.

"Wait on, sweetie." Penny said.

"_Discount,_ Stuart." said Leonard, firmly. "Normally you'd pay good dollar to hire somebody to put on a display like that. Everyone here got to see it for free."

"And the Arrangement, Stuart." Howard reminded him.

Johanna caught on. She was expected to haggle.

"Thirteen hundred and fifty each." Stuart said.

"A thousand." Leonard repeated, doing the haggling for her.

"Twelve hundred and fifty." Stuart repeated. These genuinely were expensive items to keep on the store inventory.

"Three thousand five hundred for all three." Johanna said. Stuart nodded.

"Gut. End anything my friends wish to buy, within reason, I will pay for also. End in the circumstances you can throw in those Princess Leeia costumes for my friend Amy. She hes been very kind to me. I do not forget my friends."

She paused, and deliberately added, "Elso, if my friend Rajesh wishes to treat the young lady he is with. I'm sorry, I do not yet know your name?"

There was a pause. And scampering feet. Johanna gave Penny her credit card. "Pay the man. I will not be long."

Johanna was a good huntress. She knew to let the prey come to where she was waiting. As Lucy, panic-stricken, slid out of the bathroom window, to her horror she saw the athletic redhead was already there and waiting for her, behind the store.

"Please!" Johanna said, raising her hands. "I mean you no harm. Will you sit end talk to me?"

She knew something about dealing with shy and scared young girls. She taught them, after all, and just now and again one arrived at the Guild school who was more introvert and retiring than usual. This did not make for a happy time at a boarding school, and she had learnt how to draw them out more.

Fifteen minutes later, she and Lucy re-entered the store through the front door. Lucy was still trembling, but took a deep breath.

"Comfort zones. Remember? Sometimes we ell need to step out of them." Johanna said, with gentle kindness. The prompt worked.

"Hi everybody. Hi, Amy. Nice to see you again. I think I should introduce myself. My name is Lucy..."

* * *

**(1) **It was held to be only courteous that if an Assassin had a professional need to enter a bedroom by night, they should ideally wait for the occupant to awaken before announcing who they were and the purpose of their visit. It counted as good manners, after all.

**(2) **Johanna was fair-minded and felt after a dinner at the University, she was in no position to complain, as Unseen University's catering made her rumble, too.

**(3) **Human plumbing on the Discworld largely revolved around things travelling downwards until they were suitably out of sight, out of mind, and Somebody Else's Problem. Gravity was the friend of the human plumber. That and running water. Those and the Grand Cloaca Maxima, and then the Estuary. Dwarfs had the opposite engineering problem. Things that urgently needed to go out of sight, out of mind, and become somebody else's problem, had to travel _upwards._ Gravity was a Dwarf drainage engineer's enemy. Devices helped, if there was no suitable underground cavern a long way from anywhere with a resident Vurm and land-eel population that ultimately turned it into, er, more Vurms and land-eels.(4) Not many humans lived near the sewage upfalls from a Dwarf settlement. Those that did, however, were amazingly rich tomato-farmers. The yield on that land was _amazing._

**(4)** Land-eels were a part of the staple diet of goblins, kobolds, nickels and other underground denizens. Everything has its place in a rich ecology. By arrangement with their Dwarf neighbours, however, they left the useful Vurms pretty much alone.

**(5)** Really true. Martial arts expert Dan Curry was tasked with devising a culturally significant weapon for the Klingon race, to be unveiled in Star Trek:TNG. He went away and thought about how weapons evolve, the cultural significance they have, the history and legend that build around them, and how a very effective weapon could be designed. He reasoned that weapons and fighting styles grow together, and devised not only the Bat'letH, but a whole school of martial arts to go with it, so that the weapon could be seen to be realistically convincing – the acid test was, "could you fight a real to-the-death combat with it? - and the moves feasible, in terms of a battle to the death where nobody was messing around. The weapon, as Johanna has commented, has its roots in a three thousand years old Chinese blade, that could be used either as a hand-weapon or as a polearm. The fighting style is modified _tai-chi. _This makes for an effectively exotic and alien weapon on TV. Many American states – and Great Britain - have classified the bat'letH as a deadly weapon which is illegal if carried in public. People attending Trekkie conventions have to make do with replica blades which have been deliberately blunted, and they have to be covered if carried outside the convention hall. Paramount Pictures and the ST franchise do not authorise official replica versions for this reason. But they are built and marketed as expensive replicas, often with lethally sharp blades, as it is not illegal to privately own them. Amusingly, a bank in Colorado was once held up by a bat'letH armed Klingon villain...

**(6) **The most visually famous Wizard, on whom Pratchett artists have gleefully based their portrayals of Ponder Stibbons, is of course Harry Potter. The actor made famous for portraying Harry Potter in film is Daniel Radcliffe – a non-practicing Jew.

**(7) **He bought a comic called _**Full Metal Chemist,**_ which he steadily maintained was so he could express professionally informed criticism of the magic and science. Ponder was so thorough about this that he bought every issue. And others, just to make sure.

**(8) **The lady Assassins had learnt this from the Witches, and thought it was a good principle.

**(9) **Lord Downey had steeled himself to suggest to Johanna that she might, er, just possibly, whenever it was convenient, make more of an effort to dress like an Assassin, in the regulation black. As opposed to, er, _khaki. _Which while it conveys a certain,_ errr, _is not Assassin-standard. mindful of lord Vetinari wanting all Guild members to, _err_, dress the part, and all that, obviously doesn't need to be done today, but perhaps some time soon? No hurry, in your own time, miss Smith-Rhodes. At some point in an otherwise unspecified future, but certainly _sometime_. Johanna had smiled at him and said she'd be happy to, Master. She had commissioned a black copy of her Howondalandian bush hat, just to show willing. But Howard Wolowitz' first impression of her had _still_ been "Indiana Jones' cute little sister".

**(10) **Discworld zoology knew about the theory of evolution, but considered it lacked ambition on the part of non-simian species. An alternative theory was that while it was true the majority of human beings were descended from apes, this wasn't the entire story. You could look at some human beings and speculate other genetics were involved. Nobby Nobbs, for instance. Any suggestion of ape-descent there would make the entire simian genus shuffle away, very pointedly, further down that branch of the Tree, and often onto a different branch altogether. There were Furies; and Banshees were a humanoid bird of prey, suggesting the avian branch had been caught in the middle of evolving to something more human. Werewolves and vampires pointed to some interesting things lurking in the bat and canine branches. Johanna will soon see anecdotal proof that some people may be descended from small, frightened, deer.

**(11) **Really true. The South African sense of humour can sometimes be more subtle.

**(12) **HEX had chosen Ponder's cover identity with care. Rather than attribute him a past at Oxford, Cambridge, Brunel or any of the top British scientific universities, he had opted for one of the chasing pack in the next division down: a well regarded ambitious college which had just enough fame to be credible, just enough enrolled students for any one to be safely anonymous, and more importantly, a short history, with few of the obscure traditions that Ponder could have been called out on, were he to meet a real Oxbridge graduate. (**13**) Norwich was also a middling-sized British city with a mediaeval core, surrounded by rurality that largely grew potatoes and cabbages. Almost like Ankh-Morpork, in fact.

**(13) **UEA Norwich was founded in 1964. It does in fact have one or two little traditions, but these are easily remembered. The time a gerbil was elected Student Union president, for instance. Professor Malcolm Bradbury, who scored a full-time tenured salary for part-time wor (he got another full-time tenured salary in the USA when he wasn't in Norwich) (14) He was also notorious for sexually harrassing female Davis at Caltech would have loved him.

**(14)** Leading to the joke "Why is Malcolm Bradbury like God? Answer -" God is here but everywhere. Bradbury is everywhere but here. Both of them knocked up a young girl and still got worshipped fot it. Although God stopped at one." Reference Bengo Macaroni at UU.

We're getting nearer and nearer the moment where the BBT gang get to visit the Discworld, in small, well-managed, escorted parties... patience...


End file.
